Cyber Sale on TpT!

Hey y'all! Can you believe Thanksgiving is already over?! My sister and I both live in Austin, and we went to North Carolina to visit our mom. The three of us always have such a great time together. My mom and sister are two of the most understanding, generous, and thoughtful people I know, and my heart is full after getting to spend a week with them. We did a little shopping, spent some time with my grandmother (she moved into an assisted living facility in February), and did a little wine tasting.

My sister, mom, and me.

My mom also pulled out a bunch of old cards and school + artwork that my sister and I had sent our grandparents over the years. My sister discovered this spelling test I took in the second grade:

She and my mom just about died laughing at the irony of how I got a 100 on a spelling test, but spelled the word 'spelling' wrong. Glad I've since learned how to spell that word right now that I'm a teacher! :)

On Thursday, we went to Charlotte to have Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of my mom's family. My cousin John got married in March, and his wife Sarah's parents also came down for Thanksgiving. On my mom's side, there are only four grandchildren, and we're all close in age, so we always have a blast playing games and catching up whenever we're all together.

My lovely family!

I didn't get back to Austin until late Friday, so I've been working like crazy to get things done before the weekend is over. I've gotten a lot of work done at home, but I'll be heading up to my school this afternoon to get a few things ready for tomorrow. I've also been preparing for TpT's giant Cyber Monday + Tuesday sale! Starting tomorrow, you can take 10% off your purchases from TpT if you use the code cmt12 at checkout. I'm joining in with a bunch of other bloggers and TpT sellers to offer an additional 20% off everything in my TpT store. (PS - I decided to start my sale early, so everything in my store is already discounted!) I just uploaded another new font (this one's called Bita, named after my crazy kitten), so be sure to check it out as well as all my other fonts + products before this awesome sale ends on Tuesday!

I've got a bunch of awesome products on my wishlist, so now I've just got to fill up my cart so I can jump straight to the checkout line tomorrow on TpT!

Have a great afternoon, and don't forget to support your fellow teachers by cyber shopping on TpT tomorrow and Tuesday! (Many thanks to Ashley for the cute button!)

Don't Be Scared...

I'm still alive, y'all, this isn't a ghost posting on my behalf!

I swear I keep waiting for the moment when I'll finally feel like my head is above water. I thought that would happen after parent/teacher conferences were over, but then I had to finish up a few wedding projects for one of my BFF's weddings (she lives in LA but she and her husband met here in Austin, so they got married here!). They got married on the 21st and this past Thursday, we had our first field trip, which began with one of the buses being 45 minutes late and ended with us coming back to school an hour and a half before we had originally planned!

This week, I've been working hard to make tomorrow fun for the kids while also making things align with our curriculum, but as soon as school's out, I have to go visit my doctor for (what I'm hoping will be) a quick out patient surgery, but I have to take Thursday off to recover, so I'm also trying to make sub plans! And, not only am I preoccupied with thinking about this surgery; I've also been thinking non-stop about my friends in New York and on the East coast, which currently includes my boyfriend. JJ has been in Boston for the past few days, and although Hurricane Sandy didn't hit hard where he was staying, I'm hoping he'll be able to get home without any delays. 

Anyway, let's move on! My students have been working hard these past few weeks, but of course my camera is still at school. So, I'll share what my class has been up to soon, but for now, I can at least tell you about something else that's new...

I've made a few new fonts and they're now up for sale in my TpT store! First up is Curly Sue:

 

Then there's Sandy (I told you I was preoccupied by the hurricane!): 

 

And last, there's Maggie, which is named after my crazy cat: 

 

In what little spare time I've had, I've really enjoyed making these! Definitely more fun than making lesson plans and grading papers! Also, just in case you didn't know, all of my fonts can be used for personal + commercial use, which means once you purchase them, you CAN use them to create and sell your own products on TpT!

I hope to be back soon to share what we've been up to at school! And, as a thank you for your patience with my lack of posting, here's a little freebie for you! 

 All you need are individually wrapped packages of Halloween marshmallows, M&Ms, and pretzels!* I plan on having my sub do this on the day after Halloween - this way my kids will get a little day after Halloween treat, but only after they use it to help them practice a little math and measurement! Click here to grab it - I'd love to know if you get a chance to use this in your class!

I hope y'all have a happy Halloween! Enjoy!

*You can also buy these in bulk and put a little of each into a small baggie - as much as I hate the waste of individual packaging, it does make for a much easier hands-on math lesson, in this case!

Fun New Fonts + July's Currently + A Giveaway!!!!

Hello friends! I've been super busy these past few weeks - my mom was in town visiting for awhile, and then I went up to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area to visit a friend and my boyfriend's family. This week, I finally had some time to get creative, and I'm so excited to have a few new things share with you all - I've made four new fonts, and I've just posted them to TpT!

This one is called PlainPrint Bold: 

 This is called Boxy Print:

 This is my fancy shmancy Calligraphy Print:

And this guy is called Bubbles!

This is my first time to list anything for sale - all of my other products are free, so I'm nervous and terribly excited to see if there will be any purchases! The response to my first font was overwhelming (it's still posted over on dafont.com - over 17,000 downloads as of today!), and I still get so happy when I see my font pop up on people's websites and products. I hope these new fonts will be just as useful and popular as my first one was! 

If you like what you see, head on over to my TpT store to purchase and download! And, if you're interested in getting one of my new fonts for FREE, please leave a comment below telling me which new font you like best! Since there are four new fonts, I'll pick four winners - don't forget to include your email address so I can email you your choice if you win! I'll randomly select the four winners next Tuesday, July 10th, so be sure to leave a comment before then! 

In other news, since I missed June's currently, I wanted to be sure to link up with Farley this month with my July currently. I know I'm a little late, but here's what I've been up to:

For my reads, I picked Holes as the book I love to read aloud to my third graders. I have a few go-to books (Matilda, Because of Winn Dixie, and Charlotte's Web are a few others I read regularly), but I really love Holes because it provides so many great conversation starters. I also appreciate that the main characters are BOYS who are strong both physically AND emotionally.

For my go-to professional book, I immediately thought of the Two Sisters, as their practices and teachings definitely changed the way I approach reading in my classroom. However, next year our school is going to become a 7 Habits Campus, so I've been reading The Leader in Me, and I'm sure that will end up being my new go-to book.

Alrighty, that's all for now! Don't forget to comment if you'd like a chance to win your favorite font! Have a great weekend, y'all!

Font Freebie!

Hi friends! Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm knee deep in laundry and reorganizing my apartment - I just got the furniture delivered from my grandmother's house, so I'm trying to make everything fit in my tiny apartment. After I finish all that, I'm going to go meet some friends for some Irish celebrating (my aunt is really into genealogy, and my maternal grandmother's side of the family does indeed hail from Ireland, so I owe it to my ancestors to enjoy this day!).

Before I get back to work, I wanted to share with you a font that I created with the iFont Maker on my iPad - I call it Plain Print, and it's the font I used for the signature you see at the end of all my posts. This was the first font I made on that app, and it's very similar to my actual handwriting. I bought a Bamboo stylus to use on my iPad, and it made making this font a breeze! (**Just to clarify, I purchased the iFont Maker app and the Bamboo stylus myself; I am not being paid to review, endorse, or share their products - I'm simply telling you about them because that's what I used and I love what I made!**)

Anyway, I submitted it to dafont.com, and they accepted it! Click here to download it for free! I'd love to know if you end up using it - leave me a comment if you do! :)

Also: If you are like me, you probably do most of your blog reading through Google Reader or Blogger, and don't visit blogs all that often unless you're commenting. But: I redesigned my blog instead of writing lesson plans one of the nights I was up at the observatory, and I absolutely love how it turned out (I was previously using a free template from here, and while it was super cute and well made, I never felt like it was really "me".) For my background, I used a polka dotted digital image from here - if you've never visited Mel's blog, she's got some GREAT ideas and tons of freebies - go check her out!). I even made my own banner and button, using my Plain Print font! I'm very proud of my first attempt at creating digital images and messing with HTML, so if you have a second to come check it out, I'd love it if you would (and tell me what you think!).

Have a great weekend!