40 Bags in 40 Days 2015

Years ago I completed my first 40 bags in 40 days challenge. It was amazing.  I was SHOCKED at how many bags of junk and clutter that I filled and easily got rid of. 

This year, I'm starting late to do the 40 bags over the 40 days of Lent, but ANYTIME can be a great time to declutter our lives.  We don’t have to wait for Lent to be mindful.. or spring cleaning to sort.. or summer to slash.. or the looming holdiays to finally clean things out from the previous year.. 

We just need to START!

So here is my handy chart.  I've saved it as a JPEG so that you can save it and use it too.

Good LUCK! 

And did you notice that I didn't put dates on it?  Just Day 1 and so forth.. so NO PRESSURE and NO GUILT! So what if it takes you all year to get the 40 days of decluttering complete.. that's at least 40 bags more than you would have otherwise!!

Won't you join me? I'm starting today.. And I'm going to start with my craft stuff. OUCH!

Art and Soul: A Burlap Lent Banner

Saturday we had our first Art and Soul event at First Presbyterian Church Stephenville! We had a blast! I was nervous because I wasn't sure if we would end up with anyone able to come cause of the horrible flu that has hit every household in town!

But we had a good turn out and I think everyone went home with a banner that they were proud of.

The set up was that we use burlap banners that one of the ladies in the church made. What a huge, huge help this was! Burlap is so messy I don't think Linda is going to be willing to do that again.. glad she made extras! 

I cut out the word FAITH in vinyl letters for everyone.

We strung hemp rope and a dowel rod through the top of the banner and the participants took the letters and placed them anywhere on the banner that they wanted.

They then painted over the letters and anywhere else they wanted on the banner. They had raw umber, burnt umber, black and white paint for this step.

After getting a base coat down, they painted a tree or flowers or something of their choosing.  This was hard for some as they wanted me to tell them exactly what and how to paint!

They did have my sample to look at for inspiration...

And Charlene wasn't shy about offering tips and suggestions!

I also made a few window cross cut outs.  Alisa cut one up to make a big F and one of the boys placed one in the middle of his banner.

The finished banners! I absolutely love the variety!

Even Maddie made one... under duress.  She was hoping that there would be a baby there that she would "have" to hold and take care of.  But I think she and her friend enjoyed the project too!

I love this couple. They are adorable.  They laughed through the entire project about the difference of their personalities.  They remind me of my grandparents.

And isn't this banner nice! I love that she made one that tells the story of her farm.

And woohoo! Lexi got to make one.  After being sick for three weeks and missing two weeks of school, it was nice to see her out and about!

After we painted, we shared a meal together.  

I'm already dreaming up plans for the next Art and Soul event!! I'm thinking a landscape painting...maybe with a palette knife.... :)

Faux Stained Glass

I'm quickly running through my stash of fun and easy kids activities for church! I'm going to have start branching out and creating new things.. but for now, I've still got a few tricks!

Anyway, last week I had the kids look at the stained glass windows in the sanctuary and talk about them.  We looked a little at the colors, the symbols and all of that.

Then I gave them each a transparency that I had printed a line design onto.  The internet is a great resource for "coloring book" stained glass designs!  I wanted the patterns to be interesting, but not too hard as I have from 4 years old to 14 year olds!

(Side note..it is super easy to print onto a transparency! Just change the setting on your printer to transparency and put it through the side feeder of the printer.)

The kids colored the transparencies with oil pastels.  I use oil pastels because I have them. You might could use crayon.. I'm not sure.

Purple was the hardest color to get to go on smoothly.. for whatever reason. What is pretty cool is that if the kids color a section and they don't like it, they can just color over that section with a new color.

After they finished coloring, I took a blank transparency and sandwiched the pastel between the two transparencies.  I then used masking tape to secure the two pieces together.

And that was it! The kids LOVED them.  I was thinking we would make them to hang at the church.. but they all took them home! We will make some to hang at the church another time!

And that's it. Another super fun and easy craft project for kids!

A new level of crazy!

So I turned in a 20 page paper on Religious Issues in Schools this morning.  It was a group project on steroids.  And I turned in an 8 page paper on Curriculum Design this morning (all my own analysis).  I have about 100 pages of student's rights law to read tonight and another 10 page paper of my own analysis of that due in a couple of days.

But that's not my new crazy.

This is.

My BRF (best running friend) and I got up and started running this morning at 4am. yes that's 4. and AM! 

We are insane. But we were supposed to do our long run on Saturday and she was going to be out of town.. so heck.. why not do a 10 mile run before work?! 

Right. :)

Here we are at the end of our run.

And I made it to work on time, interacted with my students and am getting ready to make dinner.

Not too bad for a Thursday....