Waterproof iPad Case

My favorite purchase of the summer was my iPad with pink smart cover. I use it daily to keep my schedule, record grades, and even play a few games. Once the school year started, I realized that putting it directly in my work bag wasn't the best idea and I ran the risk of it getting soaked if it was pouring on my bike ride to work. A waterproof case was in order, but living on an island in the middle of nowhere leaves few options for sewing materials.

I had some ugly blue oil cloth, but wasn't thrilled about the idea of carrying a case made from it around every day. I went through my stash and found a great piece of decorate weight fabric that I bought 2 years ago in Tokyo and knew that I would be perfect. I thought about ironing with a waterproofing layer, but remembered I had saved the plastic zippered pouches my new pillows came in. I just started cutting, sewing and ended up quilting the decorate weight fabric then covered it with the cut up clear plastic from the zippered pouches. I didn't really have a plan in mind, but it all came together. The back isn't the prettiest thing, but I learned a couple things to avoid that in the future. Also for the closure, I thought about velcro, but attaching it to the plastic was proving to be a challenge, so I used a new no-slip head band that I cut down to size and sewed on. I love my iPad case because it is not only functional, but I love the look of the fabric that I used.

Have your hooter cake and eat it too!

Since my friends and I are all teachers, we head our separate ways for 2 months over the summer and end up missing out on celebrating some birthdays. In early September, a group got together to celebrate 3 summer birthdays. I decided to make and decorate some fun cakes for the event. We ended up with 4 desserts since we tried to accommodate all dietary restrictions of the 12 guests (gluten free, chocolate free, dairy free). I went with a gluten free banana cake with maple cream cheese frosting, yum yum!

Since my friend KB loves owls, I went with a hooter for her and for the two birthday boys, I went with hooters of another variety.

A classy room

This year since I had more than 5 days to plan for decorating my classroom, I had time to put in more effort and thought while decorating my classroom. My focus over the year with students will be keyboarding skills, so I made a large keyboard on the wall with square dessert plates. I think it turned out quite nice and it will be a great tool for helping students as they are working on their hand placement on the keyboard.

Aside from the couple bulletin boards in my classroom, there are concrete walls that make it a challenge to decorate. Since there seem to be an excess amount of CD's from outdated software, I used them to create swirls and spirals around the room.