Craftmania!!

I think that Martha Stewart took up residence in my house this week. We have been very crafty!

I shared my Monday Made It.

This is a gift for a blogging buddy. Shhh....

Revamped some old signs with my rainbow chevron theme.


Whipped up a quick freebie. I think that I have a mustache problem...
Free classroom testing poster
Taught myself how to make paracord bracelets with this {tutorial}. Thought that my fifth graders might like to earn one. Side note: These are in my school colors, which happen to be the colors of one of our rival universities. My seven-year-old, upon seeing this bracelet said, "Don't you know those are colors you hate?!" I replied, "They are my school's colors." Her response? "Maybe you should switch schools..." LOVE HER!!

Free classroom testing poster

More Classroom Art and a FB Giveaway

Last night I finally scratched another thing off of my {July to-do list}.


Nothing too complicated about it. I used a pickle jar to make my circles. I put a little paint on the rim and pressed it where I wanted the circles to go so there weren't any pencil marks. Then I used a Q-tip to make the dots around the circle and to paint the edges of the circles. Then I used a foam brush to paint in the circles. I stink at lettering, so I used my Silhouette to cut out my name. I wanted to do vinyl, but I didn't have a color that looked nice with it. Then I was going to use it to create a stencil and sponge paint my name, but I didn't think that the edges would be as sharp as I wanted and I knew that there would be problems with the middles of some of my letters. So I decided to Mod Podge the letters cut out by my Silhouette. That made certain areas shiny, so I ended up Mod Podging the whole canvas.


And the winner of our Pinterest Scavenger Hunt is Amy Mehallic! Check your email!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And coming soon to a Facebook near you...
Clip art by Megan at teachingsuperpower.blogspot.com
You can get a head start by liking both {Jivey's FB page} and {my FB page} :)


Organizing Your TpT Purchases

If you are anything like me, then you have bought tons of things from TpT but don't really know what you have. Today I'm going to share with you a way to organize your purchases without printing out everything. I'm going to focus on PDF files that have multiple components, like ELA centers. It is also possible to do this with PowerPoint, but most of what I have purchased are PDFs. I will also tell you that I'm using Adobe Reader on my MacBook Pro running 10.8.4. Your options might be a little different.

So let's say you purchased this fantastic set for your ELA centers, but you don't really remember what skills are included.

Option #1 - Print a proof page for all slides

Go to File-Print to get this screen:

You are going to change some settings to make a proof sheet. Click on Multiple under Page Sizing and Handling.
You can adjust the Pages per sheet to whatever you want. I chose 16 for this example. Since there are 41 slides, it will take three pages to print. I can even do two-sided printing to save more paper. After the page is printed, then I write the name of the file on the printout and file in my binder.

Option #2 - Print a proof page with title slides only

Before you select File-Print, write down the pages that you want to include on the sheet. I'm going to include the title page for each center. Then go to File-Print to get the same dialogue box as above.

This time, type in the pages numbers you want to include under Pages to Print. Then I clicked Multiple, and changed it to 6 pages per sheet because that's all I wanted.
Now it will only print on one page. Print it out, write the file name on it, and file away. Voila!

Remember that you still have today and tomorrow to enter our {Pinterest Scavenger Hunt contest}!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



AND, {The Teaching Tribune} is still having their ten days of giveaways! Do you need a new classroom theme, a Nexus tablet, or a gift basket valued at $200. Then get over there! Remember that you need to enter every day!

Throwback Thursday - DIY Brag Tags


Somehow I missed last week's Throwback Thursday. My husband would argue that my summer is supposed to be relaxing and fun, but is has been busy!!!

If you are thinking that you might incorporate brag tags this school year (and many of you are, based on my TpT sales), I am reposting my DIY on how to make your own. Or, it you just want to buy mine, that would be fine, too ;)

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Originally posted 4/8/13

I recently talked about my experience with ordering brag tags, and I decided that I wanted to see if this was something that I could incorporate fourth quarter to help with classroom management. I am also trying out the Reading Olympians program as part of the Pass the Torch linky, and I think that they have beads and tags in that program, too.

My first thought was, "How are we going to know whose necklace is whose?" I thought about writing their names on the back of one of the tags. But they wouldn't have any tags yet. They have to earn them. Then I wondered if I could have tags made with their names on them, which would be expensive since each tag would be custom. Then I wondered if I could write their names on a piece of cardstock, cut them to shape, and then laminate them. And then I decided to mess with PowerPoint. End result... {names changed to protect the not-so-innocent ;)}

 
Here is how I made the template:


After that, it was simply print, laminate, cut, and punch a hole for the ball chain. I used a 1/8" punch. I can now make all of the personalized and custom tags that I want. Of course, the quality isn't the same as the original, but it's a good substitute if you want the motivation but don't have the budget for a bunch of tags. If I could figure out how to make a PPT template so that you can edit mine instead of creating your own, I would. So if you know of a tutorial or a way to do it, please email me or leave me a comment! :)

UPDATE:
I have uploaded some templates to TpT. Check them out by clicking on the following picture. They are $1.00.

My other project this month was to try to preserve my oldest daughter's favorite t-shirt. You would not believe the lengths that I went through to find this shirt. Her then-bestie showed up to daycare with one, and she had to have one, too! It involved trips to all areas Targets and desperate please for help on Facebook. Anyway, this shirt has been well-loved, and the holes in it showed how much I've had to wash this thing. There is no way that my second daughter would be able to wear this hand-me-down, and it certainly wouldn't have had the same sentimental value.
I bought a cheap white frame at Michael's. That was the only thing that I had to buy to do this. I took the frame back to use as a guide to trim the box the frame came in down to the correct size. This way I had a piece of cardboard to mount the shirt on. I ended up having to trim it a little more to compensate for the thickness of the shirt wrapped around the edges of the cardboard.
Then I cut up the shirt (which was a little painful/stressful - God forbid I should make a mistake to would ruin the project!) and folded it over the edges of the cardboard. I couldn't figure how else to attach it to the cardboard other than staples, which you can kind of see if you look under the edges of the glass. If anyone has a better idea, please let me know! There wasn't much material to work with towards the top where the sleeves and neck were. I guess that I could have done a spray adhesive or something, but I was leery of using something permanent in case I made a mistake.
I think that it turned out pretty well considering the shape that it was in, but the daughter was pleased, so that's what counts!

Classroom DIY
A Teacher without a Class

Classroom Progress

Oh, Wednesday. You're here again. I decided that this summer that I would go in to school for a few hours every Wednesday to try to alleviate the stress when August rolls around. I decided that when I wasn't able to get into my new classroom until a few days before school started. I was moving buildings, and my room was still under construction. It was actually one of the reasons I started this blog. If you go back to my earliest posts, you will read all about the angst that I was going through as I was reading about my colleagues revamping their rooms all summer.

So I am happy to report that so far, it has gone very well. Here are some pictures of my progress.
My corner/supply area

Reading table

Doorway

Most boring corner ever - This is where the I Can statements and word wall will be.

The most interesting part of the room - the back!!
I feel that I am far enough along so that when I actually have to report to work, I can focus on what I'm teaching and getting materials ready. And making negotiations...

And welcome to my new followers from {yesterday's feature} on The Teaching Tribune. Ursula Gamier won yesterday's Rafflecopter for the HUGE gift basket!! Make sure that you enter today's new Rafflecopter. I REALLY wish that I could win some of these prizes. I was fortunate to join this group of ladies pretty late in the game, so they tackled most of the hard work it took to put together this new collaborative blog.

Today is my last day of the Christmas in July sale. My most expensive items are 20% off today.