30+ followers FREEBIE and my 1st Monday Made It!

So, first off, thanks again to all of you wonderful followers!  I wanted to make a freebie to share with you, so here it is!

 
Click on the picture and it will take you to my TpT store so you can download your FREE copy!  It's a sorting game where students identify place value of digits through the 1000s.  Let me know what you think!  I hope you all like it.
I'm also jumping on board (finally) for 4th Grade Frolics Monday Made It.
  
A couple of weeks ago I had a fantastic girls' day out with my best friend.  We are talking a perfect day, Yankee Candle flagship store, Pier 1, Christmas Tree Shop, pedicures, etc. etc.  We had a great time just poking around and hanging out.  During our adventures I came across this little gem:

 As soon as I found this I was so excited!  Can we say awesome pencil holder???  =)  So then of course I had to take my time and just the right accessories for my wonderful find.  The other day I went to Michael's with my mother.  It took me over an hour in there, but I finally made up my mind.  Here is what I decided on:

 Here's a closer image of the ribbon I went with:

  and the accents that I decided to go with:










 When all was said and done it took me way longer to shop for the ribbon and flowers than it did to put the final product together.  Have to love when a project goes quickly! =)  Here it is:

 and one more view:

 I ended up alternating between the two flower colors around the outer edge because I couldn't decided which I liked better.  I love it, and cannot wait to use it on my desk in my classroom.  (I'm also secretly hoping to find another pot just like this one so I can make the exact same thing because it matches my house perfectly!)
So there you have it, my first project completed.  Now if only the rest of them were that easy! =)  That definitely was nothing like my deck job I tackled at home.  Our house is eight years old, and the  wood was never sealed, it was pressure treated but never sealed.  So this is what it all looked like on the decks:

 It was definitely all gray/brown/green dingy and I HATED it.  So, after two full days of scrubbing and pressure washing we were starting to make some real progress:

 Once it was all clean (finally) we sealed it with a cedar tinted deck stain.  Had we known how much of a process this was going to be, we would have gone with the Thompson's clear finish that we initially were going to go with.  We then saw the cedar color in another brand, but we didn't realize how it would drip and coat unevenly.  Add to that the temperature was 90 degrees and it was soaking in so quickly because it had never been sealed before, and we had a long, hot, never ending task in front of us.  In the end it came out pretty well, and seeing as this is our first home, we're learning as we go along. =)

Not too bad right? =)
Have a great day!
~Heather~