Open to Opportunity

I am in Boston for a meeting today.  A pretty quick in & out visit.  I brought along a stack of papers to grade and toted them to breakfast with me.  To my fruition, I didn't grade a single paper.  I blame my impromptu breakfast mates - a lovely family from California.

It turns out the family homeschools their two sons - you know, I appreciate thoughtful homeschooling - and the mom was such a wealth of insightfulness that I literally took notes.  Yes, having a regular conversation over breakfast taking notes.  That's me.  Slightly geeky.

Which made me think.  When you are open to opportunity, delightful things can happen.

Now, I just need to grade this stack of papers, attend my meeting, and find a bookstore before my flight this evening.  The mom recommended two books for me.  Have you read Ingenius or Creating Innovators?

Open to opportunity,
Jen

PS - College students who have taken Educational Psychology with me, you'll laugh when I tell you which book the high school-aged son was reading.  Daniel Pink's Drive!  Could this family be any cooler?

{Upcycled} Juice Pouch Wallets - A Tutorial

Because we all need a break from work......

Here's an easy weekend craft to give yourself a break from studying or if you are a teacher, grading papers. Mr. UpCyclist and I both carry a juice pouch wallet and get compliments all the time on how fun & unique they are.

You need:

• Two clean juice pouches (like Honest Kids, Capri Sun, etc.)
• Goo-Be-Gone (explained below)
• Velcro (see photo below)
• Sewing machine
• Scissors

Step #1:  Get all the kids in your neighborhood or in your classroom to drink juice from a pouch.

Step #2:  Using scissors, cut a small slit on the bottom of each pouch, so you can easily wash out the inside of the pouches.

Step #3:  Give the pouches a bath.  Ahhh....the life of an {upcycled} pouch.

Step #4:  Let the pouches dry overnight.  The next day, I like to place a small paper towel inside the bottom slit to collect any excess water.  That's a Martha Stewart tip, by the way.  She does that in her vases, reportedly.  Now, for the Goo-Be-Gone: Sometimes the glue used to adhere the straw to the outside of the pouch leaves a sticky residue.  The Goo-Be-Gone gets rid of that residue from the outside of the pouch lickety-split. I found my small bottle of Goo-Be-Gone at the Dollar Store.  Home Depot has Goo-Be-Gone, too.  

Step #5:  You are about to start sewing.  You are going to line-up two pouches like I have below.  One pouch should overlap the other pouch about 2 inches.

Step #6:  You will then sew two zig-zag lines across the two juice pouches while they are nice and aligned with each other.  Two zig-zag lines is adequate to hold the pouches together.

Step #7:  Now, begin folding your pouch into a wallet.  Notice how I rounded my bottom corners.  That way, the bottom corners aren't sharp.

Step #8:  Sew a straight stitch up one side of the pouch and sew another straight stitch up the other side.  It is very pouch-like now.

Here's a close-up of the rounded corners all sewn......Notice I use a straight-stitch for the sides - not a zig-zag stitch.

Step #9:  Time to round the corners of the top flap.  Then, sew a straight stitch around the edge of the top flap to keep all the layers of the juice pouch together.

Here's a close-up of the top flap....

This is the Velcro I like to use.  I'm all about a Sticky Back in the little square shape.  I have found this Velcro at Joann Fabrics & Crafts, Home Depot (or was that Lowe's?) and Walmart.

Step #10:  Take the soft side of the Velcro and adhere it to the main pouch.

Step #11:  Now, line-up the rough side of Velcro and adhere it to the flap.  The directions say to let the Velcro adhere overnight before using.  I generally follow this advice for maximum adherence.

Voila!  Upcycled juice pouch wallets!  Cute, no?  They make a great gift.  A fun gift card holder.  And of course, an uber-extraordinary wallet.

All the best, Upcyclist.  Happy craftucation!

Jen

Nurturing Emotional Intelligence

UPDATE:  Want more?  Check out this blog post, too.  This feelings wheel rules!

As Lil O gets older, I need to step up my "game" in helping her build resiliency and emotional intelligence.  If you can't remember what that's all about, you can start here with the Marshmallow post.

Or, you if haven't used HALTED, consider using it.  It is a personal favorite of mine.  I think all humans (age 8 and older) should understand how to HALT themselves.  I HALT myself all the time.

In efforts to step up my game, I plan to embrace the easy suggestions in this article from Vanderbilt University.  My next two tasks with Lil O will be: 1) to teach her HALTED (I think she is old enough to understand the acronym and its use) and 2) To start working on her understanding of feeling words like the list above (from the same article).

Feeling brave and excited (Hey, look!  I used two new feelings words),

Jen

UPDATE:  New post here...because really?  Can you have enough Emotional Intelligence posts?  I think not.

Seeing Stars

I recently had professional head shots taken.  Evidenced above and below.  Star doodles seemed appropriate for the photo above, no?  Just look at my mischievous smile.

A head shot of me is long overdue.  Up until last week, if someone needed a head shot of me for a professional gig, I just cropped a photo off my iPhone.  That's a sure way to look unprofessional, mind you.  Now, I owe a humongous thank you to Photography by Shelane.  Shelane was ultra-fast at snapping the photos of me, editing them that day (I love my softened wrinkles!) and somehow made me look like I have style.  You should know, I brought seven tops (blouses) with me to the photo shoot.  Shelane nixed five of them without batting an eyelash.  She's not fooling around.

This head shot below is one of my favorites.  My mom doesn't like that part of my head is cut off.  I like that feature, actually.  Plus, I like the artsy feel of the brick wall and the background being out-of-focus.

Most of my family and close friends think this head shot below makes the best head shot.  It does have more of a traditional look.

I think this one truly captures my personality.  Though it might not make a traditional head shot.

It especially does not make a traditional head shot when you add doodles to it, but they make me smile.

Shelane captured the sweet side of me with this shot.  Looks can be deceiving.  Ha! 

In the end, I think I will take Shelane's advice.  I will use all the head shots for the "right" occasion.  If I need a more playful head shot, I have 'em.  If I need a more traditional, conservative head shot, I have those, too.

Thank you, Shelane, for capturing me and my personality on digital film and separating my curls when the humidity kindly clumped them together.  

What's your head shot look like?

Curious,

Jen

Teachers Pay Teachers {for Tech Tuesday}

Teachers make the best sharers, which is probably why Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) - an online marketplace for lessons plans, activities and other teachery things - is having such a huge success.  In fact, one of the teachers who uses TPT just surpassed earning a million dollars just through the items she's sold to other teachers on TPT.

Isn't that awesome?  A million on the side.  To read more about her success, click here.

Of course, not everything is for sale on TPT.  Almost 50,000 items are free!  Free.  FRee.  FREE!

Before you spend anytime developing your next lesson plan or activity, check out Teachers Pay Teachers and save yourself valuable time. Or add your own items and start earning extra income.

Yep, thank me later :)

Jen

PS - Special thanks to Skillshare for featuring Teachers Pay Teachers on their Facebook page this week and reignited my interest in them.