Teacher Note Necklace Made from Upcycled CD

Every year I like to make a little something for my Granddaughter's Teacher for Teacher appreciation week and this year I've come up with this note necklace that is made from an old CD.

I wanted to incorporate something useful into something fun!

I noticed that the teachers at school sometime have recess or yard duty and I thought it might be handy to have this little necklace with a post-it note pad and pen attached!

I even included a badge clip so that they can easily wear their school badge with the necklace.

To personalize it for a teacher gift, I added the photo of my Granddaughter and a sweet quote/poem about teachers!

This craft can easily be done in 15 minutes (minus drying time), though I'll have to admit, I added a few more things to my version that probably made it take a little longer.

Adding the gold cord around the photo was a bit tedious as it didn't want to easily lay down in a circle.
Also, the way I attached the beaded necklace to the cd was more elaborate than you really need to get.

I was just thinking of how it might lay nicer, so I added the snipped paper clip ends and cut the necklace in half and glued it to the ends of the clips.

This of course took more time than just gluing the whole beaded necklace to the back of the CD, but I wanted to add the square post-it note which took up more room and made it harder to mount the beads directly to the back of the cd.

I started by sanding the CD lightly on the shiny side and a little harder on the colored side because I was using tissue paper to cover it and didn't want any of the writing to show through.

I cut some strips of patterned tissue paper and then cut them into oblong pieces and adhered them to the CD with Mod Podge.

I only put two coats of Mod Podge, but you can add more if you like, just be sure to allow drying time between coats.

I scanned and printed out a photo of my Granddaughter on my Epson CX7400 color printer and glued it to the center of the CD.

(Note: before applying Mod Podge to a ink jet photo print out...apply a light coat of fixative to the photo/print out first...it will prevent the Mod Podge from causing the print to run or bleed!)

I was going to make a print out of the poem on my computer, but for times sake I decided to hand write the quote using a black sharpie marker.

In hindsight...I wish I had gone with the printout, only because I have a terrible time lining up my writing/printing as you can tell from the pictures!

I even used a "template" I made from paper and pencil, hoping to get it right and I still wasn't thrilled with the results, but the message will get across I suppose and maybe it will make the gift more personable!

The note pad/post-it note was attached using double sided foam tape and the pen was attached using the clip on the pen.

I thought of using magnets for the pen, but I didn't want to add any more weight than necessary to the necklace.

This project was quick and very inexpensive to make, I found the beads, tissue paper, pen and post-it notes at the 99 cents store and of course the CD was just an old one I had laying around that I no longer needed.

Here are the tools and supplies I used for this project:

Tools & Materials List:

Old CD (Not shown in photo above)
Sand Paper
Tissue Paper
Beaded Necklace, Plastic
Post-it Notes
Mod Podge
E6000 Adhesive
Workable Fixatif
Aleene's Tacky Glue
Mod Podge Gloss Sealer
Foam Paint Brush
Wire Cutters
Foam Mounting Tape (Two Sided)
Heavy Duty Scissors (Cutco Brand)
Regular Scissors
Sharpie Pen, Black
Pen (with clip)
Pencil
Gold Cord
Cardboard
Wax Paper and/or Butcher Paper
Paper Weights
Color Printer, Ink Jet (Epson)
Paper Clips
Plastic Container (for Mod Podge) (Not shown in photo above)

I made a slideshow showing the steps I took to make this project.

You can view it here on my YouTube Channel:


Or here on my Flipagram Feed:



Thanks so much for visiting my blog!

If you want to see some more great Teacher Appreciation Gift Ideas, click on the graphic below and visit Angie, Carolina and Jessica's blogs for some awesome and crafty inspiration!

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Vintage Sewing Finds - Craft Haul!

I just love to go "thrifting", perusing garage sales, yard sales, thrift stores, estate sales and the dollar store!

I rarely get lucky enough though, to come across great sewing or craft supplies.

This past weekend I  was bored and home by myself because DH was at an automotive swap meet (one of his fav pastimes!).

So, I decided to venture out into cruising the local yard sales.

I had seen signs all week for this one in particular, so I went there first and was so surprised to see a ton of "crafty" stuff!

It was mostly old...(oops...I mean VINTAGE-Y!) (Is that even a word??!!) (smile!)

The prices were great and if I'd had it my way...I would have bought most if not ALL of it!

The problem is, we have a very small house and my craft room is super limited on storage space, so I decided to be a bit selective and not go too crazy.

Here is video I made detailing my haul:

Hope you enjoy it!

If you like what you see, I'd love for you to comment and or become a follower!

I am having a "follower" giveaway right now, so if you get a chance check it out here:

(Or you can also click on the photo link in my sidebar.)

Thanks so much for visiting me!

Photos/Videos in this Post were taken by:

Lisa Hall & Beth Raper ©2012

Cameras Used: Canon 5D Mark II, Apple iPhone 4s, JVC Picsio HD (video)

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Dollar-Store Halloween Pumpkin Luminaries

Happy Halloween to all my crafty friends out there!

Just thought I'd post this cool and thrifty craft that me and my 4 year old Granddaughter "B" completed the other day for Halloween.

It's so easy, yet turns out looking so nice and only costs a few bucks to make!

I originally found this idea on a cool blog that I follow called "Mod Podge Rocks" and I "pinned" it to my Pinterest Board so I would be able to find it again later.

I was glad that I did, because when I decided to try and come up with a fun Halloween activity for my Granddaughter, this one immediately popped in my mind, as funds have been tight lately and I had remembered that this one was cheap to make!

I took a quick trip to the dollar store to get the glass votive holders, battery tea lights and Halloween napkins (Total: $4.00 w/o tax!).

I had the other supplies needed already on hand.

Here are the supplies we started with:

As you can see, my precious Granddaughter was very excited about getting started with our "Crafty" project.

She is such a sweetheart and brings me so much joy!
I really love that we can share crafting together!

I wanted to show a lot of pictures of her doing this with me, so that you all know that this is a craft that can be done with Children with a little supervision.

I was pretty impressed at how much of it little "B" was able to handle on her own and she was really in to it!

I am going to lightly skim over how we made these, but if you want a better, more complete tutorial check out The "Maiden D'Shade" blog post/tutorial here.

(The Mod Podge posting directed readers to the Maiden D'Shade tutorial also.)

We started out by cutting out the strips of orange tissue paper to cover the glass votive holders.

Then we mixed a little bit of water with some Mod Podge:

Next, we began gluing on the tissue paper strips with the Mod Podge:

This part was a bit tricky at first, because we tried "dipping" the pieces in the MP and placing them, but they tend to tear and come apart that way, so then we decided to just lightly glue them first with a brush...just enough to get them to lie down on the glass and then after they were all on there, we went over the entire thing lightly.

After the first coat of Mod Podge, we took them outside on the front porch to dry:

(NOTE: Don't try this if it is a windy day, because obviously dirt, sand and other foreign objects could stick to the wet Mod Podge and give your project an unwanted design addition!)

We were under a little bit of time constraint, because "B" was making hers for her Mommy for Halloween and we needed to get it done kind of fast.

Putting it outside in the sun definitely helped dry it enough to get us to the next step.

"B" wanted a cat on her pumpkin, so we got out the Cricut Stuff and she picked out one from the Seasonal "Pumpkin Carving" Cartridge.

If you don't have a Cricut or would just prefer to cut out designs for yourself, Better Homes & Gardens has some great Stencils for carving Pumpkins that can also be used for this project, you just have to size them down a bit on your computer before printing them out.

Click HERE for the link to the stencils.

Sweet "B" has done a lot of "Cricutting" with Grandma, so she can actually operate it with a little help from me.

She chose the cat with a circle around it and the Cricut Imagine Machine did the work for us!

B's favorite part is "scooping" the finished product off the mat!

I sometimes have to help her a little with this part, if the design is particularly intricate, as one slip of the hand and the design can easily be torn!

She is getting pretty good at it though...an old pro!

The next step was to attach the cut-out to the pumpkin/luminary.

By now the first coat of Mod Podge had dried enough to continue.

"B" brushed on the MP to the back side of the cat cut-out:

I helped her glue it on the votive holder, as it was tricky to get it to lay flat on the rounded edges:

I had to hold it in place for about a minute or two so that it wouldn't slide around when I coated it with the MP.

Also, I had to fold and tuck under a tiny bit on each side to make it fit to the round shape.

I probably could have cut it smaller and would not have had this problem, but like I noted earlier, we were under time constraint, so I just did what I could do to make it look alright.

After adhering the cat, we covered it with a layer of Mod Podge and let it dry:

I did my Pumpkin next and just tried to experiment with something different.

I decided to try and cut out a design from a Halloween Napkin.

These are the napkins that I got at the dollar store:

I cut out the ghost with the word "Boo" on it:

Then I attached it to the pumpkin with a little bit of MP:

A bit of a warning here...go VERY easy on the Mod Podge with napkins, I was forgetting that they are a bit more delicate than tissue paper and I over-did it and made a crinkly mess out of my ghost!

Also, I put the second coat of MP on too early, before it was dry and it made the face part of the ghost too transparent, which I guess would have been fine for a ghost, if the bottom half had matched!

I didn't realize this until it had dried completely the second time, so there wasn't much I could do to fix it at that point, but at least I learned something from my experiment!

After the luminaries were completely dry, we added one LED Tealight Candle to each.

The tealights we used were purchased in a pack of three from the dollar store:

Here are the luminaries lighted:

I have to say, my Granddaughter's turned out much better than mine and I am so proud of her!

She is pretty excited about her gift for Mommy!

We had so much fun making these and I can't wait to make some more next year, or perhaps make some for Christmas!

Thank-you all for joining me and sharing in my fun craft time with my precious Granddaughter!

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