Monday Made It: July 20

It's time for Monday Made It with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics!

Unbelievably, I only have one more Monday in my summer vacation after today. I return to work officially on July 30th. :( I much prefer the "unofficial" work day. You know, the one where you stop by school, move a few things around, unpack your desk, sip your Starbucks, and then leave after a few hours to go home and read a good book!

This morning's post will be short and sweet; I have two days of training for Blackboard this morning. Have any of you used Blackboard? If so, I'd love to know what you think!

On to the MMI...I finally finished the bookends that I saw early in the summer right here on MMI. I tried to find the original post, but was unsuccessful. If this was inspired by you, please let me know so I can give you credit!!

This is the beginning. The ampersands (love.that.word.) came from Michael's on sale, and the wood was from the scrap pile in the hubby's workshop. Love.that.man!

 A word to the wise- this project used almost that entire bottle of paint you see in the top right corner. The hubby says I should have painted water on the wood first so that it wouldn't soak up so much paint. Who knew?

 I decided to try to paint the edges in a different color. Can you see that edge? Ummm hmmm. I wasn't feeling it either, and I was in too big of a hurry to wait for the paint to dry so I could tape it off to get a clean line. So, I did what any teacher/mom on a deadline would do....

 I painted right over that orange with blue! My need for neatness has been satisfied. Ahhh...

 Next, I Mod Podged the entire piece of wood. Then I painted Mod Podge on the back of the scrapbook paper that had been cut to size, lined it up, and smoothed out the wrinkles using a stiff plastic grocery bonus points card.

 Repeat the procedure on the top and then put a layer of Mod Podge over the whole thing to protect it.  The white film you see will dry clear and make the entire thing a little shiny!

 Attach the ampersands with some good old fashioned hot glue, or you could use E6000. I prefer the hot glue because it's faster and doesn't stink nearly as badly!

 Here's the view from the end. I love the way the scrapbook paper adds a pop of color!

The final product: an inexpensive project that will help you feature books from your classroom library!

If you made it all the way to the end of this post, head on over to my TpT store where my top selling bundle is about 40% off.

How many more Mondays do you have left of vacation? (Just know that if you say 3 or 4, I may have to hate you. Just sayin'!)

Head on over to 4th Grade Frolics to see what all of your blogging friends have been making. You may find something you can't live without!