Where Have I Been???

Hi everybody!  I am so sorry I have been missing in action lately.  But I have a really good excuse (not a fun one, but a real one).

Those of you who have followed me since last year will remember that I was a pedestrian hit my a Lexus SUV in November.  I had a cast on my wrist and my back was messed up.  Well, I have been spending my summer break with:  doctor visits, specialist visits, attorney visits, MRI visit, more specialist visits, and 2nd opinion visits.  And this has been in the last few weeks! 

So I am so sorry that I haven't been blogging lately.  I had the MRIs last Thursday and they did both one right after the other (3 hours!!!!).  Since then, my back is so sore but my wrist has been in so much pain....I am wearing my brace daily and it is very hard to type in.

After my last specialist/2nd opinion visit, I'm on more medication to help the inflammation.  Once that is done, it is either I'm better, I get different more powerful medication, or I get a shot in my back AND wrist!  AHHHH!

I'm just hoping to get better soon.  I can start getting into my classroom next week on the 7th.  But under doctor's orders:  NO lifting, NO carrying anything heavy, NO turning my wrist a certain way, wearing a back brace, and wearing a wrist brace.  And how am I going to get my room beautified under all that?????  And I have a new principal who doesn't even know about the accident!!! 

Don't give up on me and my little old blog.  I want to share stuff with you all....but please just give me some time to be able to type.  Can you tell I'm stressing?????  Oh well....wish me luck!

The Aftermath from Monday Made It

 

The Aftermath from Monday Made It!  This is the blog after Monday Made It.  I figured I would share with you all my work area.  I kinda took over the dining room.  I mean come on, it's summer...do we really NEED a dining room table?  I don't think so!

 

 

I know so many of you have these awesome offices that you work in.  Well I have an office, but it is upstairs and my son plays downstairs.  So....I work in the dining room, kitchen, and family room.  It's kinda like the day after....

 

 

Another thing I wanted to share with you all....these adorable monsters.  

 

 

 

 

They are actually cards!  I found them at Hobby Lobby in the card section.  Does Hobby Lobby have everything, or what????  So anyways....I cut them apart and I'm going to add them to some of my bulletin boards. 

This is a little monster critter that I found at Hobby Lobby as well.  I'm going to use him to travel back and forth with the kiddos each weekend.  Isn't he cute???  I think they will love him!

 

 Well that's it for today.  I have to run and clean up my work space on the dining room table so that I can start working on next week's Monday Made It!

Monday Made It - July 22

Second week in a row, I'm linking up with the Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her weekly linky.  I can't believe it took me this long to get into the swing of things!

Click here to link up.

Number 1 --- I saw this on Pinterest awhile last summer and never got around to doing it.  Well not this summer!




I ordered this straw dispenser from Amazon.


Click on the picture to buy one.


It cost $15.00 and $9.99 shipping.  I didn't think that was too awful so I ordered it!  It came a couple days later.  Here is my finished one...



I don't have a Cameo machine yet, so I made my letters using stickers.  I used sticker borders and I cut apart the CTP pencil border for the two pencil cutouts.  Whatcha think???
 

Number 2 --- My birthday straws.  I had to make them monster-y to match my theme.  I used my cute Scrappindoodle monster clip art to make the cards.

Here is my bin full of straws.  I let the kiddos pick one on their birthday. 

It took me awhile to turn the text on these since they were sideways, upside down, etc...

 but I think they turned out adorable.

Number 3 --- My eraser holder.  Here is another one I saw last year and wanted to make.  It's the adorable eraser holder made from a gumball machine.  Once again I ordered from Amazon...

 

It came with a small pack of Jelly Belly's (which of course my son and I ate them while we were working on this project)!  I used another CTP pencil border pencil to cover up the Jelly Belly label.  I used fun little letters to put on the glass.  I decided to add white paper behind the letters so that they showed with the glass and the erasers.

 

Here is the final product.  Whatcha think?  I think my kiddos will love this.  My son sure did!

Number 4 --- My "Where are you Board"...Another Pinterest project!  This is one of the ones floating out there-

Click on it to go to the Pinterest post.

 

 

So I wanted to make this for my class.  I used the names of some of our special teachers.  I decided to use their names instead of saying Speech, LD, etc....  I thought it was nicer for the class to see which teacher they had instead of where they were going. Just a little privacy for the kids.

 

 

So that's it for this week.  Don't forget to link up.  It usually takes me a couple days to go through all of the great ideas, but it is so worth it!  Have a great week everyone!

Monday Made It - July 15

I'm linking up with the GREAT Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her weekly linky.

Click here to link up.

 

My first one I saw originally on Pinterest:

            

The first picture is to keep track of the noise level in your classroom.  You just attach a clothespin on to the circle that meets your noise expectation.  The second picture goes along with the first.  Each time you tell your class that their noise level is too loud, they loose a letter off the word.  If they get to "NO", there is no more talking and you have a silent classroom.

I liked both of these ideas, but I needed to change it a little to fit into my class.  First, I didn't like the idea of having outside voice.  I don't even want to think of a time that I would allow my students to use an outside voice inside!  But that is me.

I also wanted to change it by adding some cute graphics.  Gotta love me some clip art!  And since I've switched my room theme from Crazy Fruit to Monsters...here is my final product with adorable monster clip art. 

Click on the picture to see it.

 

 

My next project is my new behavior clip chart, also with monsters!  I will use clothespins with my student's names on them to clip on the sides. 

 

 

You will see that I have 3 going up and 3 going down from Ready to Learn.  I used to have 2 more ways to clip up and 3 down.  While I was making this new one, my 8 year old son decided that my students should have the same opportunities going up as they do going down.  Lightbulb!!!  He was completely right.   So now, my students can go up 3 and down 3.  Genius!

 

Click on the picture to see it.

And here are my last two to share today.  I have decided to use brag tags and award coupons this year.  I needed to store them in something that would be easy for me to use and easy for my students to see.  I bought two containers from Michael's (on sale and our teacher discount...YES).  I made cute labels and tapped them on to the lids.  Here's how they turned out:

Cute monster again!

 

Graphics from the super talented Melonheadz and paper from this set (have you seen this set???  FANTASTIC!)

 

Okay, that is all I'm sharing today.  If you made it through this long blog...THANK YOU!!  I just have so much to share now that I feel I'm actually accomplishing things off my To Do List!  You can click on Tara's link at the top to join in the fun.

 

NEW Room Theme for the Year

Do you remember last month or so, when I said I was doing a Crazy Fruit theme for next year because of this crazy border?

For those of you who have been with me since last year, I change my theme EVERY year.  Yes, you read that correctly, every year.  I have never repeated my back to school theme.  Which sounds like fun, but it is A LOT of work.  But it keeps me excited about the new school year.  And it makes me look forward to starting.

Well...I've decided to change my theme. I already worked on making some new things, but now I am soooooooo excited.  I have wanted to do this new theme for years, but we never decided to do it.

I am finally going to do....MONSTERS!!!!  I'm super excited.  I have spent all last week making everything I could think of to change over. 

So why change now?  My son and I went to see Monsters University...need I say more????

What have I done so far?  I made a new calendar with adorable clip art from Scrappindoodles. 

 

 



Of course I couldn't just do one basic monster calendar and repeat it every month...no....I used each month's clip art from Scrappindoodles and made one for each month!  And yes, I bought the monsters for each month!

I have been going crazy.  I purchased monster clip art from Creative Clips

  

and Melonheadz

and KPM

as well.  I will be sharing my creations with you in the next few weeks.  SUPER excited to share my monsters with you all!

Anyone else out there doing monsters??? 

Giveaway Winner

 

 

Wow!  I can't thank you all enough for all the entries in my Blog Anniversary Celebration. I had over 685 entries!   

 

 

The winner to my giveaway is...drum roll please.....#211 Sharon.  Congratulations Sharon!  I just sent you an email.  I'm so excited to share my entire store with you! 

 

Thanks to everyone who entered my Blog Anniversary Celebration.  It warms my heart!  :)

My Blog Anniversary - Oops...I Missed It!

I can't believe I missed my Blog Anniversary.  Okay so I scheduled my last few posts, because I just got back from family vacation.  Yep, we went to Disney World.  I just love going there.  If you follow my little blog you know that we usually meet up with my brother's family since they live on the East coast, but not this year.  It was just my son, me, hubby, and the grandparents.  We had a ball!

So now on to my celebration.  I'm not doing anything with other bloggy friends.  There has been so much going on with switching over to Bloglovin' and so many bloggy giveaways/celebrations, that I wanted to keep mine simple.

Before I announce anything, let me get mushy.  I can't believe that my little blog is still around after a year and that so many of you read it.  I know so many of you felt this way in the beginning, but to push that post button scared me to death!  It took a lot for me to submit (okay...so it still does take a lot to submit)!

I started my little blog as an assignment in a technology class I was enrolled in last summer.  I thought, okay, I 'll set this up and see what happens.  And do you know what happened???  People read it!  People commented!  People shared with me!  I always say this, but this Bloggy Community is FANTASTIC! 

 

To have so many followers after just a year, I feel humbled.  I know I don't blog every day, and I know I need more stuff in my TPT/TN stores, but this old timer/new blogger is really trying to keep up with all of you young guys!

So you're sitting there saying....get on with it Tracey.  Whatcha gonna do for your Anniversary?  Well...

 

1) First, I'm going to give EVERYONE a prize.... from July 3rd until July 6th everything in my store will be 20% off!  It's a little thing I can do to show how much I appreciate all of you!

2) Second...here is the giveaway:

 

 

 

 

 

 Everything I used for these cute pictures came from the fabulous Krista Wallden at Creative Clips.

 

I hope I've given enough to all of you for all the love and support you have given me this past year.  Enter below.  The giveaway goes from July 3rd until July 6th.  Best of luck everyone!


a Rafflecopter giveaway



I'm Going on a Blog Hunt

Hi everyone.  I'm joining the fun linky from Corkboard Connections called Goin' on a Blog Hunt.

 

First, I have to say...Google Reader is gone and Bloglovin is in.  I hope you all remembered to import one last time before it turned off.  I imported like twice yesterday just to be safe.  I switched over to Bloglovin a little bit ago, so I wouldn't feel overwhelmed once July 1st hit and had to get used to a whole new system.  So far...so good!

 

While you are here, please don't forget to click on the Bloglovin button to add my blog to your follower list (thank you so much for adding me!).

 

Come join the Blog Hunt.  Click the adorable picture above to link up!  Happy Hunting Everyone!

Monday Made It #1 - New Birthday Chart

I am FINALLY linking up with Tara for my first Monday Made It for this summer.  I have been a little slow, I know...but better late than never, right???

Click the picture to link up!

I'm going to share with you my birthday chart.  Usually, I match my birthday chart with my yearly theme.  And since I change my theme EVERY year, I always change my chart.  But I got the adorable birthday cupcakes from Krista Wallden (click on her name to go to her TPT page where you can buy them) and just HAD to use them!

Here is my old birthday chart (it matches my old detective them from last year):

And here is my new one:

All 12 months...looking "cupcakey cute"!  The two large cupcakes are for my birthday month October and one for my 2 sons July...heehee. 

 

 

The small squares next to each month will be where I will write the student's names and their birthdays.  I put a cute graphic on each one to make the month sign.

 

 

Didn't t turn out cute???  I will be making this set available on my TPT store soon.  Here is the preview.  I've included the blank squares with one colored graphic in the corner and a different one with a giant black/white outline that you can write in.

Update - You can click on my preview picture and it'll take you to my TPT store where you can now purchase my set.

Now go click the picture above to link up with the amazing Tara!  Happy creating everyone!