Tuesday Teaching {Wordle}

Word clouds by Wordle.

My curriculum for my technology classes always includes a graphic design unit. The students always get a kick out of finding their inner designer, and they love using Wordle! I'd even go so far as to say the students prefer spending their time on the internet on this site over an educational game website. Believe it! :)

I love this. I love this for games, for summaries, for brainstorming, for design - in science, technology, reading, English, a little girl's bedroom. I love this for everything!

The first word cloud comes from a 'Copy & Paste' transcript of one of my earlier Teaching posts. Hm... Displacement, water, boat, tinfoil.... Can you guess which post it is?

Click here!

Wouldn't Wordle come in handy when in a Reading class setting? Or even with your kids at home. After the child reads a story, they can type in the main points they remember and see their word cloud come to form. Or you could make the word clouds and have the child guess which story the word cloud represents. 

Sound familiar?

I also think this is a very creative and cute way to incorporate a personal touch in a framed print in a child's room.

Taken right from her Wikipedia page. Did I pick a famous enough woman? :) 

To use Wordle,
1. go to http://www.wordle.net/create
2. type in your set of words. Click go!
3. change settings in the upper left hand corner of your image (font, color, direction of words, etc.)
4. if there are words you do not want to have in your graphic, simply right click on the word and click 'Remove _______'

I can't wait to see what you come up with! Comment with a link to show off your designs!

Anything Else Fridays {Spice Container Labels}

Our Friday this week falls on Wednesday. Or atleast, a boating adventure tomorrow gets me feeling like it's the weekend already! This week, I wanted to spice up our .. spice rack. Zing!

We've been in the market for a spice rack since we moved into our everything-is-bigger-except-the-kitchen apartment to free up some much needed cupboard space. A nice wood one was our first choice, and we scored one off Craigslist for $10!

Included were the dull generic bottles, identical, making it ridiculously hard to tell the 32 spices apart and adding 10 minutes to dinner prep time.

 

I shopped around for some new spice container labels and only found blank labels that you write on yourself. AH. Not going to ruin my new beautiful spice rack with my squigglies! I decided to make them myself. Another excuse to break out the tiny graphic designer in me. 

I like to do test prints on lined paper so I know exactly where on the paper the graphics will print. Put it in the correct way a normal lined paper would lay and see which side/corner your design comes out on. It's foolproof!

The initial plan was to use Avery labels with their printing template. Sounds easy, right? Should've been. But, the Martha Stewart version I got sadly printed out really runny - not even a step up above my squigglies. So, for the (hopefully) temporary time, I've just cut these out from printer paper and glued them on the blank labels.

Not ideal, but I invite you to imagine what they look like from really far away :) Even with that hiccup though, I feel like they add lots more personality to the kitchen. I love them! 

Let me know in the comments if you'd like the sheets I designed and in what format (Photoshop/Word/PDF). I'm going to try these with the normal, non-Martha Stewart Avery 1.5" labels soon to see if they work. Enjoy!

Anything Else Fridays {Finishing up}

I'm real excited (and relieved) to report the Projects Completed this week!

Other side of Pillow cover for baby girl's room. Design by cluckclucksew

Still no curtain rod, but I'd say this baby girl's room is done! Finished the race, but hasn't gotten the medal yet kind of done :)

Flip side of the pillow

This gallery wall was tricky! I had a few different arrangements that I really loved and so I put the different sizes of paper on the wall only to discover that the spotlight above gave really weird shadows! So I decided nothing could go underneath the middle one, which is going to house a cute typography of our family mission statement. So I had to go out horizontally. In the end, I made a single breakage line on both sides of the middle frame and matched up the little ones to keep the breakage line obvious through the whole thing. Yes, I made up the term breakage line. It's the new planking.

Anything Else Fridays {Curtains and Cookies}

Projects in Progress: 3

Pillow for Baby Girl's Rocker

Front will have this design using all the fun patterns in the quilt: Inspired from cluckclucksew.com

Curtains for Baby Girl's Room

 

Get this stubborn sticker off of the rug. Ideas, please! Help!

Projects Completed: 1

Unpacked the suitcases ;)

Projects to Start: 2

Pillows for our 'new' couch and rocker

Figure out how to arrange our gallery wall

Oh yes - and breathe.

One plus from just getting off vacation is that I have serious energy to cook! I guess not cooking for two weeks makes me feel like spending extra time in the kitchen is a must. *Take note if we invite you to dinner - come over after a long break!* I wanted to use up the last of our frozen tilapia, but I have been pretty disappointed in tilapia recipes. They are either overly fishy or overly butter-ized. But this! This was delicious. The recipe was in a family cookbook, but I had an inkling she got it from allrecipes.com. Walaa! :

Jalapeno Garlic Tilapia Pasta

We halved the cayenne pepper and it was a good amount of heat (granted, we are big fans of spicy!) I flaked the fish in the pasta instead of plating the whole fillet. I think this helped lessen the fishiness. Also I used half and half instead of heavy cream, and I bet the real cream would have made it even more delicious! Both the husband and I could not get enough of it!

And I topped the meal off with some gooey goodness - chocolate chip cookies. A homemade dinner and homemade dessert!? This may push my husband to want to go on even more vacations. I'll oblige I guess :)

Super gooey - without a crunch - Chocolate Chip cookies

Matt wasn't thrilled about these because he likes a good crispiness to his chocolate chip cookie. You know when you almost throw a batch out because you obviously didn't put enough flour in the cookies and they turn out like flat disks? Matt's choice of cookie. If you do like a perfectly gooey cookie, this recipe is for you!

Enjoy the weekend!

Monday Musings {In memory}

I have a special place in my heart for Arlington National Cemetery. I will never forget the first time I walked the grounds and witnessed the ceremonial changing of the guard. A special feeling came over me. I came knowing these men and women gave their lives for my freedom, but at that moment I felt it. I drove through 624 acres of honored sacrifice, bringing to light the addage that 'freedom is not free', and felt a reverence.

A special ceremony occurs on Memorial Day here, including the laying of American flags at each tombstone. This sight never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

Courtesy of garbc.com

Courtesy of warnewsupdates.blogspot.com

As we take this time to relax and enjoy the people around us, let's remember to have a spirit of gratitude. And we can involve our kids in lots of ways, most simply by teaching our children to be grateful. Another great thing to do with the kids is to write a card of thanks. Visit 

{www.amillionthanks.org}

for an address of where to send letters of encouragement or thanks. May we honor these sacrifices and be moved to do our part in this great nation.

They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Anything Else Fridays {Baby room}

My first Friday post! Fridays are going to show anything going on in my life that is not necessarily related to the geeky part of me (although you're the judge of my geekiness, I guess! :) Mostly this will include DIY projects around the house, but the Julia Child in me has been getting very brave lately so I'm sure there will be some of that too!  Once in a while, an Ellen clip might get thrown in for hilarity's sake or a shout out to other bloggers. Who knows what you'll find on a Friday.

We recently moved into a 2 bedroom apt. Round of applause! :) This is a big deal with a 5 month old! The little one has now moved on from the spacious wall of her parent's bedroom.

I've been so excited to decorate a full room for my baby. So this week has been DIY decorating, centered around the baby quilt my momma and I (well... momma quilted, and I picked the colors :) love that woman) made for the little one before she was born.

Why pick 3-4 fabrics when you can pick 13! Actually, I'm just indecisive. BUT I do love how this turned out. The bright colors and mix of patterns - oo it just makes me smile!

 The DIY art in the frames above were featured on a blog earlier this month,

{iheartpears.blgspot.com}

but now that the memorable pink wall is gone, I wanted to put a splash more color into the frames. Luckily, I had extra fabric from the quilt so I used some scraps to cover the mat of the frame.

I love this pop of color!

I'm making a pillow to go on the rocking chair as well. Sneak preview here:

Inspired by daciray.com, but I did use different measurements. Let me know if anyone wants the dimensions. The goal is to bring you the finished pillow next week!

My last project for the room will be to make curtains and I can't stop myself from getting really excited about something like this:

Amy Meier Design

Enjoy your weekend! Mine just might include baby's first time on a boat. How about yours?