Tagged!

I spend my Saturday night with my Momma tagging! :)  And no, not as in graffiti... as in real tags!  Here are some designs I came up with and delivered to some teacher friends this morning attached to some yummy goodies...

1.

I used oregano colored distressing ink on the tag, Tim Holtz stamps, and roughed/chalked the edges. 

2. 

Chalked the edges

3. 

Love the little owl :)

4. 

This was such a cute one!

I don't have a link for the clear stamps I borrowed from my mom for the last three tags, but I do have a link for the Tim Holtz stamps I used on the distressed tag (number 1) with the rain quote.  [Side note... I ADORE Tim Holtz and his products- check him out!]  You can find the clear stamp set here.  It's very versatile and adds a perfect touch.

Hope your Monday is coming to a lovely end!  I still have sub plans to write so I better stop blogging and get sub plan writing :)

Pinterest!

I'm sure many of you have heard about pinterest.com, have been to the website, or have your own pinterest account.  If you do, bear with me.  If not, you need to follow my directions... Stop what you are doing.  (Ok, well read this, then stop what you are doing, haha)  Go to the website.  Check out the amazing ideas.  Maybe make a page of your own to start collecting the ideas for yourself.

It's such a unique place.  Before, when I found a blog I liked or an idea that I loved, I would bookmark that site.  Then, when I wanted to go back and look at it, I had to rifle through all of my bookmarked sites and guess which one was the right link.  And then half the time, I would be wrong and it would take me a much longer time than necessary!  Plus, I don't know how many times I've needed some ideas for a party or gift and I forget all those super ideas I had already bookmarked.  Alas, we come to my new obsession... pinterest.com.

Once you have your own account (you have to request an invite and that might take a few minutes to get one from the website), you can look at other peoples boards, create you own, and repin other peoples' ideas into your boards.  You can also pin other sites you find to your boards as well.  Then you have your own collection of ideas and links to everything that you like.  For instance, if you had a party coming up, all you have to do is go other members party boards or in my case, my own collection, and there would be a plethora of ideas just waiting to be used!  No long searches necessary.  No guess work on finding the right bookmarked link.  It's all right there.  So please, if you have not checked this out, go do it now :)

Here's the link to my pinterest boards. http://pinterest.com/cchamberlin/

Enjoy!! :)

One of those days...

School has started back up and just as I might have guessed, I've been a little busy and blogging has gone to wayside.  So tonight, I wanted to add to the blog. I'm a bit grumpy after my day (the day is a bit long for some of my kiddos still :) so we're still working on our procedures especially in the afternoon!).  But I really want to end my day on a positive note so I thought I'd post.  I found this a few weeks ago and I think it's a good reminder...

Hope it brightens your day and reminds you to do one of these things today :)

More to come soon, I promise!

My Classroom Library

Here's my big reveal of my classroom library!!

Enjoy! :)

Here's my prices:
Chairs: $7 a piece (plus a 20% off coupon from BB&B)
Pillows: 4.99 a piece at Meijer on clearance
Leaves: $6.00 for the bunch
Paper for the tree: free
Body pillow: old one I had but I bought a new cover for 7.99
Posters: Free- made them out of my red apple rewards calendar from scholastic
As for the books... you don't even want to know how much money I've spent on books over the past three years :)  If I have an addiction, it's buying books! :)

Tomorrow is the big day... first day of school! Here we go!! :)

Organization, Organization, Organi-what?

I am very thankful because I have been able to get into my room the past two days, which is a lot more than a lot of people I work with.  I hate that they are delayed because I can't imagine how stressful that must feel.  I wish I could speed up the construction process for them.  :(

I've basically just made piles in my room.  One pile will eventually go in the storage room that isn't completed yet.  One pile is stuff I think I no longer want but cannot commit to getting rid of it JUST yet.  And one pile is books.  Books upon books upon books.  Tomorrow I plan to tackle the books pile and re-sort them into new tubs for my classroom library (PS-which is coming along! I should post pictures maybe next week- woo!)

After the craziness that was last year and the splitting classes and such I decided I want to be sooooo much more organized this year.  Granted, I know it won't stay this way, but I love starting out the year with a fresh, well-organized plan.  And here is my recent creation: My All-In-One-All-Purpose-Planner.  (No I don't really call it that ;)  )  I found this great website with some ahhhhmazing daily pages you can use to plan your day. I printed off a bunch, bought a calendar, inserted a few tabs and notebook, and already I'm feeling much better.  Take that stress that's been keeping me up at night!! :)

Here's a picture of the outside (of course I had to get a little creative with it!)  

Sorry for the blurry picture. The camera was not cooperating.

Here are the daily pages- wonderful!  This may not be your cup of tea, but this is an amazing tool for me.  I love to-do lists and areas to record notes and appointments.  And the fact that it reminds me how much water I should be drinking and has a fitness goal for each day is icing on the cake! I just love it!

Here's the meal planning/grocery list, which keeps my meal planning simple and quick.

And of course the calendar to keep all things school, all things life, and all things me straight. :)

I also have a 3 ring notebook at the end in which I keep school ideas and/or can take notes easily.

Here's my planner total cost:
1 inch binder: $3.00  (could have gone for cheaper but I had to have the clear outer layer to make it cute!)
Daily pages/meal planner pages: Free!
Tabs: Free (they were a teacher gift)
Calendar: 6.00 (again, could have gone cheaper but I wanted cute one!)
Notebook: .10  (gotta love back to school time!)
Pictures for the front:  .60 at Walgreens
Total cost:  $9.70   (Woo hoo!!!)

I hope this inspires you to check out that website and make life a little easier (grocery shopping anyone?!) with some quick and easy lists.

Maybe I can stay this organized all year!  Here's hoping! :)

Classroom Ideas

It's that time again!  Stores are stocked with binders, crayons, and new backpacks.  School supply lists are the hot commodity.  And teachers are wondering... where did the summer go?!  :)  School will be starting back up in about 3 weeks which means teachers are starting up, well, now.  I would like to get into my classroom, especially since we are going to New York for the good part of next week, but technically I can't until August 1 when construction is finished.  I may get to a little bit this week while we are in doing beginning of the year testing, shhh....  :)   I finally have a room that I know is mine and it feels that way.  I've kinda felt like I didn't fully make myself at home in either of my classrooms because it was never certain a.) that I would be coming back and b.) I would be in the same classroom/grade level.  Needless to say, I am pumped I am in my own room doing all day kindergarten for hopefully a while!  That means I really get to dig in to my room and think about what I like and don't like about the set up.   For the most part, I like the organization of my big areas and furniture in the room.  I am thinking of redoing some bulletin boards, but what I really want to reorganize is my classroom library nook.  It needs some love.  I want to make it comfy and inviting for my kiddos to come in, grab a good book, and settle down to read.  Here are some ideas I am playing with.  I want to accomplish something with not too much money spent! :)

I love the idea of a reading tent, like the one in this classroom, but I want to make sure the kiddos can be seen easily by me so I can monitor their library procedures.

The jungle theme is cute in this classroom but it doesn't quite match my theme and I'm working with less space under a loft.

This reading corner might be a bit busy, but I like the tree idea.  I was thinking about a reading tree at first so I may go back to that...

I like the little chairs in the this area, and the ocean theme is cute too.

I have old pillows in the corner right now, but I think I am going to buy kids chairs/ bean bag chairs to replace them.  (I think I saw Aldis had some bean bag chairs on sale!)  I also want to incorporate some kind of item that changes with the seasons and I already have a new tub organizing system so I can get books rotated in and out easier.  I will post pictures when I decide and get it ready to go! :)

Here's to all those teachers out there getting ready for another year!

Extreme Couch Makeover

It's been a superb day... date day with Colby, nothing better!  We enjoyed some Starbucks, shopping, and then happened to go see Harry Potter again, which I'm always up for! :)  Now we're relaxing at home for a few and what better time than to blog?!

When we got our house, the people we bought it from were awesome and they left a lot of items here for us, which was wonderful because going from a one bedroom apartment to a four bedroom house was kind of a shock.  So much space and we had about enough furniture to fill maybe 3 rooms.  So it was a lot of craigslist-ing, garage sailing, and hand-me-downing.  (Yes, all of those are words I just created!)   They left a couch in the living room, a.k.a my reading room, but we realized as we started pulling in some other pieces we have bought and putting in my mamaw's piano, the couch's cover and pillows didn't quite match our decor.  So it was time for a makeover...  (and it couldn't be very expensive!)

Here's the before picture:

Buying a new couch was out of the question and why would we want to when we had a perfectly good couch already here?  I just needed to find the right look for us.

So I happened to be in Big Lots one day searching for school supplies when I thought, hey, maybe there might be a inexpensive slipcover here.  Sure enough, I found one that I thought might work.  I also found some SUPER cute pillows that I thought would match perfectly (and only $9 a piece!).  I got it home and realized it was a VERY tight fit, and after searching through 3 different stores, I found the pins that would help keep the cover secure around the base pillows.  Corkscrew pins are awesome for this, by the way!

So, about 30 minutes later and 8 corkscrew pins around the edges, this was our finished product!

  I was pretty pleased with it!!  The lamp we got for free and I had spray painted it a few months ago and added a new lamp shade. I traded out the plant for some pillars (still missing candles- oops!) that I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby and added decor to the shelf above the table.  Apparently my reading room has also become the tree themed room, haha :)  What can I say, it's peaceful!

Pillows- $9
Slipcover - $40
Total price - $58  - Yay!!

Not too bad to add a whole new look for our room.  I love finding deals! :)
Have a wonderful Saturday and stay cool in this heat!