Khan Academy.. A FABULOUS tutorial site for education!

Have you heard of Khan Academy? 

If you have kids or just want to learn something new.. you should check it out!

And just for the record, there isn't anything for me in this post.. I just want to share a GREAT learning resource!

Here is a snapshot of what my kids are up to.  Nope, Kylie hasn't been on this week. Given that Kylie is only in Kindergarten, her access is limited to when I or her sister's can supervise!

Anyway.. 

One of the cool things about this site is that I know what my kids are working on and for the most part, they enjoy it!

So if you look at Lexi's profile you can see exactly what concepts she is currently working on and what kind of progress she has made.

You can even breakdown the summary into individualized skills.  This is great if they are struggling with something at school, or if they are interested in a certain area you can select that topic for study.



They earn badges and energy points for working.

As an adult, I can learn new things as well.

I can coach my children.

As a teacher I can create classrooms and have students work from here, but I can see what they have accomplished, what they are individually struggling with and how much time was spent on a problem.  This is a huge factor in student success because if students spend a ton of time working on something and then get it wrong, they become very frustrated! This site allows you to ask for a hint on a problem and then gives different scenarios to teach the concept in a different way.  

It is amazing.

So all that to say, I am a huge fan of Khan Academy! 

If you haven't used this site before, I challenge you to try it.  

Oh.. and the best part.. IT'S FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

You are welcome.

Quiche Recipes with a Tutorial

I love making quiche and it's really simple to make. I forget this though and we will go for months and months without eating it as I don't keep half and half on hand and you really need the half and half...

Anyway, I made quiche for Christmas Eve and then also for an end of the year breakfast party with my running friends.  It was a hit and people were asking for the recipe, so I thought I'd share!

I made a tutorial for it. (of course I did..)

The Hashbrown crust is based of Paula Deen's recipe, but I have tweaked it a little. She uses more butter and less hashbrown. No surprise. I'm thinking that for the next quiche I'm going to try to make the crust without any butter at all. I don't think it needs it.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

If you don't want to do the hashbrown crust, just purchase either a store bought crust in the pie plate, or you can get the crust that you put in your own plate. I really like Pillsbury's pie crusts, so I get those and roll into my deep dish pie plate!

I hope you find this tutorial helpful!  Enjoy.  

(The hashbrown quiche will take longer to make as you bake the hashbrowns first (30 min) and then the filling (30 min). But the pie crust quiche is a quick 30 minute meal.)

oh.. and if you find the tutorial useful, give it a like, it helps me out! thanks!

Click here to take you to the tutorial!

or copy and paste the link below.
http://www.guidecentr.al/Bake-Hashbrown-Crust-Quiche-Two-Ways/eboGiRjr0y

Tutorial for a super easy Tshirt Quilt

I've had on my to-do list to make a t-shirt quilt for a while. I finally got around to making one. I LOVE it!! I can't wait to make another!

And if you want to learn how to make one for yourself, see my tutorial below!

Check out How to Make an EASY Tshirt No-Border Ruffle Quilt. by Emily McLemore on Snapguide.

Another Card Making Tutorial

While I have been resting, I've been making cards. 125 cards actually. Truly, I just love giving little cards for no reason. I am one of the worst about giving birthday cards and special event cards... but cards just because... I love that. I am aware that it makes no sense. No surprise really!

Anyway, here is my card tutorial.

Check out How to Make Your Own Cards by Emily McLemore on Snapguide.

Making a colored pencil "old master"

I love the look of the Old Master's painting. I really like Jean-Batpiste-Simeon Chardin's works.

http://www.jean-baptiste-simeon-chardin.org/

 

 

And as much as I would love to have student's work in oils, there is not enough time or money to devote to oil painting.. at least not for Art 1 and 2 students. So, after seeing a process last year at art teacher convention that used India ink and Lyra pencils, I have created my own, "Old Masters" lesson using lower cost supplies and addresses multiple art standards. It has become a keeper lesson!

 

The first thing I have students do is draw a still life from observation. This is done on just normal paper that you would do a colored pencil drawing. You can use the good stuff or just tag board. This takes a while. They must color the drawing in its entirety and need to have at least 10 layers of pencil wax. I like using a number of colors on each item as well. While the bottle is green, it has many shades of green, blue, purple, yellow and white in it. This is the easiest way to build up layers of wax, by building up layers of color.

 

 

Once the drawing is complete. TAKE A PICTURE OF IT. Or scan it. Because it won't look like this again! And if the student's haven't used enough layers of pencil, the piece is going to be ruined in the next step!

Take India ink and some cotton or gauze and rub ink over the BACK of the drawing. Completely coat the paper.

 

It should look like this.

 

 Flip the paper over and now coat the front. Yes, you are covering up your drawing!

 

 Now take a clean piece of gauze/cotton and rub off the ink.

Once you have rubbed off all the ink you want off, go back in with colored pencils or wax crayons or oil pastels and add color back in areas of the drawing.

 

These are the supplies that I used.

 

Here is a close up of the finished piece.



 

And there you have it. My "old master" colored pencil still life!

 

Want to make one for yourself or have your class do this project? Click on the image below to take you to my Snapguide! This let's you view the in depth tutorial on your smartphone, ipad or computer! (I've even included a couple of video segments!)

http://snapguide.com/guides/create-an-old-master-mixed-media-drawing/?_exp=02&utm_expid=69945963-37&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fsnapguide.com%2F%3F_exp%3D02

 

Enjoy!



My first Snapguide tutorial

http://snapguide.com/guides/begin-a-basic-cardboard-loom-weaving-project/

http://snapguide.com/guides/begin-a-basic-cardboard-loom-weaving-project/

For my grad class, I had to make a snapguide tutorial that I would use in my classroom. The above tutuorial is the one I made this morning.  It was so fun!! And super easy!!

Get ready, I'm about to make a ton of these!

A Few HandMade Quick Card How-to's and tips!

WARNING!

IF YOU ARE NOT A CRAFTER,
YOU WILL WANT TO SKIP THIS POST!!

For the rest of you, here are a few how-to's
and tips for fast and easy handmade cards using scraps.

Here are few pictures of the finished cards. I made 12 cards using only the scraps from a set of pages I made. I don't think they look like cards made from leftovers!

In order to get the quantity of scraps for the cards, I had to make some pages :) Here are the pages. I used one paper pack (it had 12 pattern papers and 10 cardstock plus I used an assortment of base pages.) This made 26 12x12 pages, or 13 layouts. For more information on how I do that, search page patterns in my search bar!

1. After taking pictures of my pages and ooh and ahhing over more picture ready pages, I started with my stack of scraps. Sort the scraps into groups according to WIDTH!
2. Any piece that has a width of 4" or more I put back into my bag. I consider this to be too big to waste on a card. I might use it later, but it's a keeper for a scrapbook page in my opinion!
3. Now, I take my pile of 2" scraps and sort those according to pattern and color. This is the pile I start with when making cards.

4. Once sorted, I pick up a 2" piece and glue it onto a card base. No real thinking goes on here.  I will cut it to size in one direction, but I really do just try to only make one cut per piece of paper at this stage of card making. By doing this, in a matter of a minute I have card bases ready to go!
5. Now, add a pop of interest by using up first the remainder larger scraps and then go to the 1/2" and 1" stacks to tie two different patterns together or for just a fun band. The key at this stage is to make a nice looking card, but to not spend more than a minute on the layout. We aren't making award winning card designs here. We are a making a dozen cards in flash!

6. With the 12 card bases ready, I then look for a few stamps to use and try my best to keep it to only 2 or 3 different stamps and inks.
7. I stamp the sentiment on the card sometimes, but I happen to be really, really bad at placement and smudging. So, I have learned to stamp on another piece of paper and glue. Besides, I think it looks nice when the sentiment is layered. :)
8. Finally, I spend most of the time embellishing the cards. Over the years, I have made LOTS AND LOTS of heavily embellished and thick cards, but they then don't fit in the envelope very well and it's expensive to mail them.  So, I try to just embellish with flat things or try to keep it somewhat simple.  As you would guess, I only use what's readily available.  I'm not going to go out and buy coordinating ribbon for my cards! That would ruin the free factor!
9. So there you have it. My completed cards. Because I can only do a couple of things at a time and have to referee children, or cook or clean or whatever, I can't tell you how much time was spent making the cards, but probably no more than 2 hours total if I had to guess to make 12 cards! Not bad!! And even better, my premade card box has been refilled!

And here is one last look at the set of stuff.

12 cards.

26 pages

and a bag of scraps to use when I put pictures on my pages.

Papers and Stamps: Close To My Heart

The alLUREing necklace tutorial

I am not a fisher woman.

And while I have been fishing a couple of times,
I wouldn't know where to begin if I had to buy a lure in order to catch a fish!

How did I decide on a fishing lure necklace?

Well, I saw a necklace made from "wobblers" in a book.

It was bright and colorful and looked fun.

I also needed to make a thank you gift for a friend and I didn't want a traditional gift!

So....I went to Walmart to look for "wobblers". They didn't have any.

Granted, I don't know what a "wobbler" looked like, but I didn't see anything named as such.

If we lived in a big city where there are sporting goods stores and the like,
I might have found what I was looking for, but we don't.
And given that improvise is my middle name.

And that I was just looking for good colors,

I settled on these fine lures.

And of course a chain (well 2 really), some jump rings.

I already had beads and the silver straight pin type things you put beads on.

Okay.. now for the tutorial!

1.Your cute little jewelry tools will NOT work for this project! I had to go dig out my husbands cutters and needle nose pliers. The hooks are HARD to cut off!

2. After trying a number of different ways to cut off the hook, I finally settled on cutting open the end the hook was placed on and not the hook itself. The picture below shows this. (once you cut open the end, you can pull off the twisted piece if you want. I tried to just untwist the wire, but I couldn't without hooking my finger on one of the THREE hooks! OUCH!)

3. Now the fun part!! After you take off all the hooks, decide on the beads you want to use and make the ends of the lures pretty!  I used the opening that I cut open and then just closed it around the bead addition.

4. After the lures were finished, (I used 4 of two different kinds and 1 larger one) I got my 2 chains and made them into one necklace about 28" long (not sure on length.. original was 22" plus a portion of the second to make it long enough to be able to put over your head).

5. I put the largest lure on first. I used two jump rings on each lure. Two reasons.. first I hate that many "custom" or "homemade" necklaces fall apart so easily and I wanted to make sure that the lures would stay on the necklace. Second, I liked how it looked. :)

6. I placed the lures on every fifth ring. No reason. I just liked the open four between each lure. Because they are pretty big, I didn't want them sitting right on top of each other.

 7. And there you have it! The finished necklace!

I'm not sure if the necklace is very practical, but it sure was fun to make.

I'm going to be on the look out for some "wobblers" and maybe make a couple more gifts!

Fabric Wall Art Tutorial. This is a home decor project even the NON crafty can do!

I was going to wait to show off my dining room when it was all done, however, I'm so proud of it even half done, that I had to brag!! :)

Here is the finished wall.  Follow my step by step process to make your own! It's soo easy  I hate to even tell my secrets! And how cool is this, it's a Technique Tuesday!!

1.  Go to the store and find a couple of yards of fabric that you love. You can choose a bold  pattern like mine, or you could use a smaller pattern and then cut a larger image/picture out with a template. For example, large flowers could be made with fabric with small print, using a different fabric for each petal...
2. Purchase some Heat N Bond LITE. Get the LITE if you plan to remove this image from the wall later. If you use the ULTRA, it will probably have more staying power.
3. Iron on the Heat N Bond LITE using the directions on the package.  I didn't worry about wasting some of the backing as the package was I think around $7 for enough for more than 5 yards. And it's way easier to cut the fabric after you put the backing on it.
4. Cut out the pattern or your desired image. You can see the backing on the back of the fabric. The backing tightens the fabric and allows you to cut out the image with minimal fraying.Make sure to use sharp scissors! And don't forget, move the fabric around and hold the scissors in pretty much one spot.

Below is a section cut out.

Below is the backside of the fabric.

5. Choose a small piece to start with.  It's really easy, all you do it pull of the backing paper, position where you want the piece and IRON IT ON THE WALL!! 

I started in a random spot. You might plan ahead more than me, but the really cool thing is that if you hate where you put it, pull it off the wall and iron it down again! It truly is awesome :)

 And finally, here is the pattern on the wall!

Good Luck!

And I challenge you, even all you noncrafty people, iron some fabric on the wall!