first of all let me express my apologies to the authors of Prentice Hall America: Pathways to the Present that i felt that it their textbook served more purpose as a pillowtop. 

-start with a textbook (or large hardback book)
-create a paper bag cover, 4th grade style
-cut out a piece of cardboard the size of the front of the book
-cut out a piece of fabric (mine was a ridiculous pink 60's floral.. mainly because this was a trial run) a bit larger than the piece of cardboard
-hot glue (unless you have a better glue/material to use instead) the bottom part of the fabric to the cardboard, then one of the sides, making nice corners
-fill with cotton batting (but just the loose kind, not the kind for quilts)
-pull the fabric tight and hot glue the 3rd side
-fill in any sparse spots with the batting
-pull the fabric tight and glue the 4th side
-now just hot glue this little creation to the front side of your book cover and voilà!

sleeping in class will never be the same again


the possible problems?
-maybe like colored duct tape or something to seal the edges as right now they are bad eyesores.

-my rough handling of my textbooks as they are transported to locker, home, class, locker, home, class over and over again.
-oh and of course getting caught sleeping in class

suggestions? ways to improve it? i'm open to anything and everything.

oh, btw if i were to do this again, after making the paperbag cover, i would tape (or do something) so that the pillowtop would not lift up the upper part of the cover -- if that made any sense

sorry if i posted this in the wrong area, i couldn't really think of where to put it. 

my huge family just had our annual family christmas party a few weekends ago.  one of my cousins was assigned tree decorating so we all helped her. one tree we did a popcorn garland, another we did a cranberry garland and the last was sort of craftster-esque. we cut out celebrities from tons of magazines and matched them with people from our family (we would match by looks, personality, or name). then we pasted them on green and red poster board, labeled with the name of the party go-er, cut them out, punched holes and tied ribbon. voilà! it was fun making the ornaments but our family really enjoyed it. they all wanted to see which celebrity they were. no photo, i'm sorry.... but the tree looked really cool with about 60 of these celebrity ornaments

haha... i was lindsay lohan (i wish!)

edit: it was SUPER cheap to make too. old magazines, some ribbon lying around and 2 posters!

The family cookbook
The idea started while two of my aunts were floating on our summer vacation at Lake Shasta last year. They thought “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get together all of our family’s recipes?!?!” So they sent out letters to my big Mormon family telling them to submit all of their favorite recipes. Then I tediously typed up all the recipes (grr…that sucked up my entire summer) and then we had ourselves a family cookbook. The book has 200+ recipes from practically everyone in the family (I have a huge extended family). Recipes range from ‘Potato Cheese Soup’ to ‘Get-A-Guy-Brownies’ to ‘Cranberry Bread’.  All the recipes were typed up, copied, and put in a binder for each family member.  Dividers with a family photo and category heading were added. I think it’s a great way to preserve my family’s history. Although it does guarantee you’ll become a good cook by trying out all the recipes (case in point: me. I can’t cook to save my life)


picture of cover (sorry for fuzziness)




a couple of dividers




my first time posting pics so i hope it works! i'm crossing my fingers 

Composition notebook + ribbon

I know this idea is quite a bit like this one,
http://www.craftster.org/yabbse/index.php?board=18;action=display;threadid=368
but I figured it was different enough to post it.

Here are the pics: http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/sarahzz15

I got a green and white UGLY composition notebook from my bio teacher at the beginning of the year (the entire science department gives out the same notebookÖuggleee!). I hate the designs that come on the composition notebooks so I decided to make mine creatively tacky. (I hope I donít offend anyone with this post, but I do tend to do easy/free/cheap crafts)

I bought like 5 different ribbons at Michaels (yayÖ. snaps for Michaels!). I hot glue gunned the ribbon in not particular order vertically on the notebook and voilý; I got myself a very tacky and fun notebook. I feel like it would be better for a Spanish class so it could be a ìfiesta notebookî, but alas I take French (zut.) I think this notebook may be a little too lively for biology, but what the hey!

The notebook has a ribbon to keep my page. (This also helps me keep papers out of the front because if I were to hold the notebook by the ribbon, all my papers would fall outÖand that would be a tragedy.. hehehe)
--Sarah

What the heck can you do with used dryer sheets? I know they have practical uses like a mosquito repellant (they actually work!), but is there some crafty/artsy project you can do with them that i am just not thinking of? At my house we do at least 6 loads of laundry a week, which means 6 dryer sheets thrown out each week. i'd love to find a fun thing to do with the used ones!