Pams Party & Practical Tips: January 2021

Friday, January 22, 2021

Dare to Share #252

It is Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share!

If you were at the party last week, you know last week was a crazy week. I am happy to say, this week was a lot less crazy and a lot better. Monday I had the day off school for MLK day. It was nice to have an extra day to get some rest. I planned some projects and changed my year round Christmas tree to a Valentine theme. The teacher I will be doing the long term position for, still has not had her baby. Since she is officially 5 days over due, the baby is being evicted tomorrow. I can't wait. Everyone at school is so excited for her. I also got some really good news. Because it is a long term position I get a raise. I also have a day added to my schedule. Because of Covid we have a one virtual day of school, and four face to face days.. On virtual days building subs are off with no pay. Since she does some virtual teaching, I will be now too for a couple of hours. The extra pay is going to be very helpful. I officially start on Monday. Since she had not had her baby yet, I was able to sub for the classes that I had already been scheduled for before we knew I was going to be asked to do the long term one. It was actually a good thing because we were short a few subs every day and had to call in reinforcements from other district schools.

This week I shared a post on how to make a tiered tray. While this is not a new post, it is timely. Tiered trays are all the rage right now. I made this basic version 10 years ago for a birthday party. I will be doing an updated version with different items shortly.

Awww as I am typing this, my boyfriend messaged to say he was picking up some food and had already ordered what he knew I wanted. (and he was right!) This guy may be a keeper. :) Since my dinner is almost here, I better get this party scheduled so it goes live on time..

Link up and HAVE FUN!

How to make a tiered tray

If you follow trends at all, you know the tiered tray is the current rage in decorating. Today it hit me that I actually shared a tutorial on how to make one 10 years ago. Back then though, I called my tiered tray a cupcake stand. If you would like to have your own tiered tray without the high price, I am going to show you how to make for just a few dollars using products from my favorite store. It will not be a surprise to you if you are a regular reader, but that store is the Dollar Tree.😀

To make a tiered tray all you need is 3 trays (plates, cake pans, etc..) two candlesticks or something similar, and some gorilla glue. What is really cool about this project is you can really use just about anything that you would like that matches your decor to make your tiered tray. I used silver trays and bronzish candlesticks in my original tray. I am not sure where that tray is now, I think in storage, but I know it is still in one piece. I am currently thinking of making another more colorful tray for an updated look.

Putting together the tiered tray is actually pretty easy. Start with the bottom tier. Outline the bottom of your candlestick with gorilla glue and center it in the middle of the tray. Let it sit for a few minute so the gorilla glue sets. Outline the top of the candlestick with the glue and center the second tray on top. After the glue sets again for a few minutes, repeat with the next tray. It is that easy. It cost me only $6 to make this which included the glue. I filled this tiered tray with cupcakes for a friends big birthday. Since it has been a decade, it is almost time for me to give her another big birthday surprise (that is if it is safe in a few months)

What would you put on your tiered tray.

If you are interested you can find my original post
here.

If you would like to see more about the spring chick garden party I threw my friend, you can find that post here.

Dare to Share #451

It's Saturday, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share!

Sorry I am a little late to get this party started this week. I know I say this a lot, but it was another crazy week.

On Monday I subbed like normal, but that was the only normal part of the day. As you may have heard my Buckeyes were playing in the National Championship, and it did not go our way. About 45 minutes before the game, I got a message from my boyfriend that said. "My car just blew up" Of course my first response was WHAT!! I tried to call him back, but he did not answer. I finally heard back from him about 30 minutes later. Thankfully his car did not blow up, but it did make a loud noise and die in the middle of a busy road near where he lived. He was able to push it safely to the side of the road, and get is towed to his house. This was also the first anniversary of my dad's death.

On Tuesday when I got to school I thought I was going to be subbing for the teacher I had been subbing for since we had been back from holiday break who was under quarantine. I was surprised when I was told that I needed to go shadow one of our special ed teachers, because I was now going to be her long term sub while she was on maternity leave. She is due this weekend, and could have the baby at any time! My boyfriend took off from work, so he could look at his car to see if it was worth fixing. The night before he thought his car was probably a goner. It turns out that one of his axles rusted out and broke in half while he was out driving. Had it happened over the weekend when he was driving on the highway to come see me, we may have had a different outcome. Instead of having to get a new car, he was able to fix it for under $200.

On Wednesday, I got an unexpected bill in the mail.

It is more that I have right now after not working for the two weeks over break.

Thursday was a calm, normal day.

Friday morning we got some heavy snow during the school day. It looked bad, but started clearing up in the afternoon. At the end of the school day I found out that I was going to sub virtually as well as in person. Since the roads were now clear, I decided to go visit my boyfriend. I usually meet him a partway, so I don't have to drive all the way to his house. We have two different places where we meet. Last night we had some miscommunication, and were waiting at two different places. It took over an hour before we figured it out, and met at the same place. By the time we made it to his house, I was tired. Tired enough that I didn't feel like unpacking the computer. I just wanted to rest, and destress.

I had planned on posting first thing this morning. We were getting ready to go visit his mom when around noon I realized.. I forgot to post. I jumped on the computer and now here we are.

So now at 1 pm, it is time to get this part started.

Hope you had a less crazy week than I did!

Link up and HAVE FUN!!

Easy Unicorn Valentine Box

This is one of my favorite Valentine's Day crafts. I actually first posted it a couple of years ago, but I love so much I thought it would be a good time to re-share it. I am not sure what Valentine's Day will look like this year, or if schools will be able to have valentine exchanges with Covid, but this unicorn craft can be used for a class party or as a cute storage box.

For the body of the unicorn you need some sort of box. I don't know if they will be available this year, but I found this one with a pre made slot on sale at Meijer for about $2, when I first made the unicorn. It was already white, so I decided to make a white unicorn. It is easy to change the color of the unicorn to whatever color you would like to make it using different colors of paper and paint.

I painted four cardboard tubes for the legs.

One thing that I love about the party section at the Dollar Tree is they have a great selection of various bows and tassels that would all be perfect for the mane and tail. For this unicorn, I chose the multi colored swirled ribbon bows on the right.

For the head you and can as creative as you want to be. There are several different things you can use depending on what shape head you would like to have. I chose the pink cup because I liked the shape of it more than the rectangle floral foam.

I had thought of painting the cup white, but chose to use white wrapping paper instead.

I glued the legs to the bottom of the box with hot glue.

This particular bow had more than one bow on the package. I wanted to have an extra full mane and tail so I bought two packages.

I used four of the smaller bows on the mane, and two on the tail. I think the curly bows look super cute.

I know this year the Dollar Tree has glitter heart stickers in pink and red, that can be used as the snout. When I had made my unicorn box I used some pink craft foam and cute it into small hearts.

I rolled some pink craft paper into the shape of a cone for the unicorn horn. I hot glued into place. I glued one some google eyes for it's eyes. Eyelashes can be added as well.

Your unicorn is now ready to go to the party, and be filled with Valetines and goodies.

Some other Valentine's Day ideas you might be interested in..

Flower Cupcakes

Homemade Valentine Crackers

Valentine Heart Pops

Cherry Chocolate Fudge

Dare to Share #450

It is Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share!

Well, we are one week into the new year, and wow what a week it has been! I want to keep my blog a happy place so we don't really need to talk about what is all over the news this week. If you are like me I am on news overload, so you don't need more of it here on my blog.

On a personal note though, I went back to school on Monday of this week, which is another reason why the week a bit eventful. I was a bit surprised when I got to school on Monday, and found out that I was the only sub who was there that day. There were various different reasons why the others were not able to work that day, but thankfully we only needed to call one other person from one of the other schools to come in. Two of the teachers are quarantined this week, but should be okay to come back sometime next week. I have filled in for both of them this week. Every single night I have stayed up too late, because I am a bit of a night owl and slept in all break. Every single morning, I told myself I should have gone to sleep earlier. Every single day after school I have accidentally taken a nap. Has anyone else had to adjust to going back to work after the holidays?

I have Valentine Days supplies and in the process of making a few new crafts. I will also be sharing a few older crafts that are favorites of mine. I had hoped to post one or two of them this week, but didn't because of that nap thing. ;)

It is now time to get tonight's party started. Link up and HAVE FUN!

Dare to Share #449

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share!

Happy New Year!! It is still technically Friday. I am just a little bit late getting the party started, but I have a good excuse. As most of you know, I am a BUCKEYE, and we had a very big game tonight. I am in Ohio with my boyfriend for New Years and the big game. We found out today that the game was going to be shown on ESPN. Guess who does not have ESPN. Yep, the boyfriend. We were able to watch the game though. I have cable and I am able to stream my cable channels on my computer. So we able to watch the game but I was not able to post on my blog until the game was over. It was a little over 4 hours long, and Ohio State won big.. WOOHOO. Now on to the Championship game and Alabama in a week and a half.

I hope that everyone had a great holiday season this year. While mine was smaller and more laid back than in seasons passed, I did have a nice Christmas and New Years Eve. It will be back to reality in just a few days though, it is back to school time on Monday.

Since I am already pretty late to post, I better get this party started.

Link up and HAVE FUN!