Looking for a New Blog?

Well, I finally got around to updating my portfolio over at Creating & Designing and I have started taking clients again. [woo hoo--I think!] I will have a couple more designs to share with you soon. Be sure to follow Creating & Designing as I will be doing a post on each new design to share their look, and introduce you to some new bloggers out there!

In the meantime, check out the header images below of some of the designs I've been doing!













This was a "clean up" package

For some reason I couldn't find links to Mrs. Cox's Crew or Sweeties in Second. If you have those links please post them so I can share their designs too!

Where Are We Board- Inspired by Miss Kindergarten

First and foremost, do you follow Miss Kindergarten? If you answered no, you need to leave my blog. Right now. Go visit her blog, follow her, and then hopefully you remember to come back and finish reading my blog post too!


Since I am transitioning to a full day pre-k classroom in September, we will actually be going places; i.e. the cafeteria, recess, etc. my mental to-do list has included creating something to fit this bill all summer. Then Hadar, at Miss Kindergarten shared the board SHE made, along with the location cards, SHE made.

Click the link for her blog to purchase these cards at TN or TPT
[Hadar, I hope you don't mind me stealing your pictures!]

I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I immediately went to TN [so she could get 100% of the purchase] and purchased her location cards for $3.00 [why reinvent the wheel, right?]

I slept on the idea & then decided to give my own twist to her board. I decided to use magnets and a .92 cent cookie sheet from Walmart. Yes. .92 cents! That's cheaper than the Dollar Tree! [woo-hoo, I can do math!]

Here were my supplies. I clearly still had to make some choices after I took this picture.


I spray painted my cookie sheet with white Dual spray paint [primer & paint one!] Once dried, I got right down to business--very eager over here.


I am in love with how it turned out! I cannot wait to display this outside of my classroom! I wouldn't be writing this post if it wasn't for Hadar's inspiration! Her cards are so darling & I made a "Where Are We" header to match perfectly for my board!

I am kinda bummed that I scratched my paint on the bottom. :( I thought I had an idea for storing the extra cards and when I tried it out I scratched the paint. [yes, that means it didn't work]--so I need to touch that up & clearly spray a protective seal coat!

I'm gonna jump on the opportunity to link my board up to 4th Grade Frolic's Made it Monday!

12 Month Calendar Card Pack

Did you know...

If you went to your local school supply store to purchase calendar cards for all 12 months of the year, you would most likely spend somewhere around $29.88--and that doesn't include your local sales tax.

I'm offering a 12 Month Calendar Card Pack in my TpT and TN Stores for just $5.00! There are calendar cards for each month in various patterns and blank cards are included for each month should you decide to do any "personalizing" to your calendar pack.

Here is a preview of the cards in the pack for each month.



I also put together a pack of matching month headers. You can purchase those in a separate pack for $2.00. At your local school supply store these may cost you up to $6.99!


 
[5 First Lucky Readers!!]
Mention this item in a blog post with a link either to one of my stores, or this blog post and I'll send you both items for free!
- Must leave your email address in your comment
- Must post a link to your post in your comment
- Must be one of the first five people to do this!

PS: The months listed for FREE in my stores right now will not be up for much longer! Please note that the November set included in this pack is DIFFERENT than the Free one for Nov!

Any questions before purchasing? Don't hesitate to ask!

August Calendar Cards- [Free]

It's time to get back into making calendar cards! No, I still don't have any for June & July yet, but they are on their way! I have had a lot of requests for all 12 months and requests for month headers to match!

For now you can snag August for Free, along with any other month I have posted. In the next week or so, I hope to put together a whole 12 month pack with calendar cards for each month, and then a separate pack of month headers. Snag the free ones while you can...once the pack is put together they will be coming down!


Click Here to get them on TpT for [Free]

Click Here to get them on TN for [Free]

Tell me more, Tell me more!

Do you really want to know anymore? I think I can sometimes be a little bit too much of an open book, but maybe I can share something with you that you don't know!

1. I'm the youngest of 3 girls. There are 7 & 12 years between my sisters & I. 

This is from 2010. My hair is not that long anymore. Unfortunately.
2. My hair is not as short as it shows in my profile picture here on blogger. It's a little longer than that, but used to be super long before I cut it. I wish I never cut it.

This is April 2011. I'm dressed as Junie B. Jones. LOOK AT THAT LONG HAIR!
3. I have a 3 month old baby niece & an almost 7 year old niece. The baby was the 10th girl in a row in our family. No boys!


4. I like to run. I used to run a lot until my first year teaching. Then I was too tired to run. I finally picked it back up this past May. Still trying to increase my distance!

Oh, just me pretending to run in a mirror self photo. I don't know why I felt this was necessary for this post.
5. Since my sophmore year in college, I have taken classes all but one summer. That's 4 summers of at least 2 classes. Yuck.

6. I am 5 classes away from finishing my masters degree. (I think) Whoo Hoo!

7. I was awarded a "Student Teacher of the Year" award by my University when I student taught. I think that's kinda neat! :)

8. I've never broken a bone.

9. I don't like milk. Unless it's in my latte or my bowl of cereal.

10. I've only ever had a white car.

Maybe you learned something interesting about me, maybe you learned something silly. Either way, you should go check out the linky party with Mrs. Lemons!

Getting Organized- Substitute Teachers

We all know we spend countless amount of time making sure that everything is as organized as possible for when we have a substitute. Or at least I know I do. I probably over prepare for them, but I just can't help it!

Last summer I created an Octopus theme substitute teacher binder. It is a printable pack to help you set up and organize all of the important information for your substitute. This item is currently listed for free in my TpT store & considering it has been downloaded almost 11,800 times I figured I would venture to make some more themes.

You can find a Lady Bug them here, and a request was recently made for a bird theme. Following this request, I thought, why not make these in lots of fun themes! So far I've been working on themes that I also have word wall letters for in my shops.

You can download any of the themes previewed below for just $2.00 in my TpT & TN stores!


Purchase on TpT     Purchase on TN

There are 7 pages total for your substitute binder in this pack. The first four are shown in these images. The other titles include: "Daily Routine", "Lesson Plans" and a "While You were Out" page. I laminated my pages onto tab dividers and they work great!

I plan on creating a frog theme & a sports theme next. If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments below! :)



[I must mention, that I came across the "While you were out..." page of the binder pack somewhere a year ago, and adapted it to fit this binder. If you created the inspiration for that page, please let me know so I can give you some credit!]

Please Pardon the Dust

Please excuse me while I steal a few moments here and there to tweak some of my blog design in between creating great blog designs for all of my clients!
 

With taking on a new "student population" in the fall, if you will, I started to get into my head that I wanted a new blog design. No more fish themed classroom=no more fish themed blog. Well, what is my classroom theme this year? It's going to be suns & clouds, but I'll save that for another post.

I've recently been creatively inspired by other blogs I've come across and by new clip art/digital scrap kits I have found. So much so that I was finally bit by the design bug. I've made a few simple changes to my design, keeping my colors the same, not wanting to change things up too much.

Just "pardon my dust" while I get around to editing the signature, post divider, blog button, and matching TpT & TN accessories!

What do you think of the new look?! (Don't hate me for changing it!)

{FREEBIE} - Color Word Labels

So, I was actually inspired to make this freebie thanks to my disaster of a crafting area. So much a disaster, that I can't even imagine sharing an image with you. But, I can imagine sharing some organization ideas with you! First things first. You are going to need to keep your eyes PEELED on your next several thrift store/yard sale adventures. 

Some time ago my mom purchased these old Jelly Belly containers and they are perfect for organizing. They weren't being used, so I decided to clean them up, remove their labels and use them for some organization in my craft area. My fingers were a little sore after scrapping all of these labels off with a razor blade, but it was well worth the trouble.

You can see some of the mess in the background. The drafting table has turned into a catch all!


I am using them to organize my markers, sharpies, color pencils, crayons, etc all by color, rather than having different containers of this and that all over the place. I made some cute color labels for the handles, and voila! New organization! 

Please excuse the lovely basement back drop! :)

I made the color labels with the chevron circles by Erin Bradley, that you can purchase from her site by clicking here. OR you can download my color labels as a {freebie} by clicking here!

I thought this was an idea you could use in your own crafting area, or even in your classroom. I'd love to know how you plan on using the labels if you grab this freebie!


I laminated my circles and then attached them to the handles with velcro dots. This way, it will be simple if I ever decide to change the labels on the containers. I also combined my black & gray together, but the label pack does include them separate!

And fortunately, I don't think I'm too late to link up with Monday Made It at 4th Grade Frolics! I feel like I've been waiting all summer to join this linky party! :)

July Currently!

I'm linking up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her July Currently party. Along with all 230 of you! WOW, I'm really late for this party!

 

Reads was a tricky one for me. I've only been teaching for 2 years, so I don't feel that I have that one GO TO book yet. But the last 2 years, I have absolutely loved reading "Santa's Stuck" during December. My pre-k kids love it and it would accompany a chimney/santa writing craftivity so well for older grades!

Right now, my go to professional book as become "How to Set up a Classroom for Students with Autism" by S.B. Linton I also ordered another book, "Lesson Ideas & Activities for Young Children with Autism & Related Special Needs" by S.B. Linton and I think I will be using this a lot more once the school year kicks off!

P.S. I'm working on a freebie to share along with a great organizing idea. I'm just not completely happy with my design yet--still perfecting! :)

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