Domo Arigato...

It's Monday and I want to crawl back under the blankets...who is with me? It was a bitter cold weekend with about 15 inches of snowfall over here. That made for quite the insanity. This morning is slow going and I have a jumble of things to share. One thing I make it a point to do, is to use my materials in as many ways as possible. These are bulletin board calendar pieces that are all laminated and would normally sit in a crate until their month arrives and they get to shine! Not in my classroom! They are in this envelope that sits in a crate of dailies, things that need to be gone through daily until they are so ingrained in the memory that they can be sold or re purposed once again. They are just about reaching the end of their use with us, but for now I will share what we do. The envelope is dumped and my son must organize them in monthly order. I then added some index cards with construction paper scraps to make up the days of the week and those need to be put into order as well. It is busy work but it is hands on work with bright colors that keep him occupied. The crate of dailies hold items for each child, I will do a post on the dailies later on in the week!

How many of you own Children's Encyclopedia's or Big Book of Why's? We have so many of these on our shelves that are full of information perfect for reports and research, but I wanted more out of them! I recently began usin a fact or 2 each day and making a worksheet/coloring page with that fact. Once I have made something for that fact, I put a post-it on the fact and date that post-it with the date we used it in class. Eventually we have an entire encyclopedia with proof that we know it all or at least what we remember.

I've mentioned before that my son is on a robotics team, he absolutely loves it and enjoys anything hands on. He has wanted to build & design bridges since he was 3 and is a complete Anglophile that wants to go to college in London and live there. He is my little engineer and anythign we can do to nurture that in him, we do. We bought him the LEGO mindstorms Robot from the LEGO store, but these things are EXPENSIVE! He loves LEGOS and has plenty of the regular kind, but after joining the robotics team, he loves building and programming his own bots and he's learning so much by doing this. This past weekend he got a second kit to join his first and this boy is in bot heaven. We took him to Home Depot to get a case to keep all his bot parts in, so that it was more portable and sturdier than the boxes. Little did we know that we would need 2! Back to the team...so they were told that they needed a better name than the one they had, as they wanted shirts for their state competition. The kids were told to come prepared with team names to the next class...I want them to be the Domo Arigato's....my son thinks I am nuts...I played him the song....yeah, I think I confirmed to him that I am nuts.

Here is one of his bots that he has programmed to shoot a Nerf gun. It's still in it's testing phase, but once he finishes it up, I plan on uploading a video. I am so proud of this kid that it's not even funny. I love when the mind wins out over anything else and as cheezy as this sounds, he's got a great mind!

Remember to enjoy every minute my friends!

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Teaching on Tuesday...

Time to learn on Tuesday! Today I will share some games I have put together to help me the learning process fun for my children. I know that we are already with an accredited program that all comes in a box, including their grading services, but I know that my children need a little MORE when it comes to learning. Sometimes books are just a little too bland for what all needs to be learned.

Art is great for looking at in galleries, not so fun when it comes to just reading about it in a workbook. I created Art Bingo for our art lessons and then we can also play it before and after heading to the Art museum. I made up 4 of these cards with additional art works on each one and mixed up their spots to make it a real BINGO game. I also printed up a master sheet that has the photo of the art work and a brief paragrah on who created it and a little about the piece and or artist. In the future, I plan on creating a game based on famous art museums of the world! A great art and geography lesson in one!

This simple math center is for my 2nd grader that is SLOOOOWWLLLY learning his times tables and for the bigger kids who are good on the minute test, but could still use polishing every now and then! I just pulled old calendar numbers and a large foam die. They are all in a plastic tray that sits on the shelf under our classroom table. Perfect for grabbing and working!

As you can tell, I am a fan of upcycling! Thrifty Teaching Aids are a favorite of mine and this game works on just that! An old yogurt container holds 48 water bottle caps labeled 1-12 (4 sets of them) and milk jug caps with operations on them (Plus, minus, multiply). The game is to pull one WB cap and put it on the 1 spot on the lid, then a MJ cap in spot #2 and finally another WB cap in spot #3. Now the student/child must answer the problem. If they get it correct, they get to keep the WB caps and return the operation caps. This continues until all WB caps are being held and then the one with the most wins. BEWARE, there are several BOOM caps in here that make you return all your winnings!

We are a HUGE LEGO family, as I am sure many of you know, my son is even in a LEGO robotics competition team! Using these AWESOME labels from Outside The Brick, We now have a hands on LEGO game that involves learning the State, Capital and Abbreviation! I did not make each grouping the same color, as it makes it more difficult for the children to play. They need a challenge and this is perfect! I also added a deck of state card that gives the capital on it along with the shape of the state. Once they group the LEGOS, they must find the correct card to make sure they are correct and then look for the state on our state map that is also in the tray. Place the LEGOs on the map and move on!

Periodic Table of Elements Play! 

I downloaded the flashcards from HERE and then the kids colored them, I laminated them and together we punched holes and thread them through a ring. Alone these are an awesome resource and can be played many ways. We often toss these in our outing bag and have them just for fun at Doctor's offices and the like. In the classroom, they are paired with a bananagrams game, a table placemat and some bingo chips. The idea is to take the cards off the ring and place them in a tray facing down. Pull a card, read the information on it and then locate it on the chart. Place a chip on the chart and then use the letters from the game to make up its atomic number. There is no winner in this game as it is just review and learning while working hands on. Once the game is over, more review is had while placing them back in order and on the ring. Have younger children? Have them put the cards away and practice counting 1-100!

Remember to enjoy every minute my friends!

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Tuesdays Tips!

Tuesday is here and with that you get a peek into my life with a shared tip! Scouring Pinterest, I found several LEGO Bridges and decided to put them together onto one page. I then printed out this page, popped it into a page protector and into our LEGO binder. This binder has all their directions, LEGO magazines and any challenges such as this that I put together. It gives them ideas to create and also challenges them to do something out of their norm. 

A large basket in our classroom is designated to new books that have come in from the weekend. They are waiting to be scanned into our database & add library pockets. While in this basket it also gives time for children to leaf through what just came in and just maybe they will check them out!
As this past week was Educator Week at Barnes & Noble, I went a bit crazy, add in a trip to the Catholic store and I was in heaven!
New This Week:
1. The Lost Files of Nancy Drew
2. My Path to Heaven a young person's guid to the Faith
3. Communion of Saints Coloring Book
4. Girls Who Rocked the World
5. Totally Catholic!
6. For Girls Only, Everything Great About Being a Girl
7. Four Perfect Pebbles A Holocaust Story
8. American Sisters Exploring the Chicago World's Fair 1893
9. Minecraft The Essential Handbook
10. George Washington, Spymaster
Two CDS:
1. The Easter
2. SAT Test Express

Make those stuffy old binder clips pretty enough for your classroom with washi tape!

Another peek into our Adoration Bags, here is mine! Mine has my wedding day Bible, bible highlighters and my daily devotional journal. In this journal I keep track of all prayer requests that I have been given, some of my own and also journal about day to day activities that I need to reflect on. After going through a few basic prayers, I pray a rosary and then begin my reflection with my bible as I pray for those that asked for prayers. Read more about our Adoration bags along with our Little Catholic Homeschool HERE!

Remember to enjoy every minute my friends!

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About Last Week...

What a busy week of field trips and  classes and fun! I am sorry that I have been away but I will share some fun we have been having. Our favorite books are the Pigeon books by Mo Willems. They make us laugh so much that we read them over and over again! Here is a fun Pigeon craft that is completely edible!
What You Need:
1. (1)Graham cracker
2.(3)mini oreos
3. Vanilla frosting tinted blue & yellow
4. (1)Orange starburst cut in tiny strip
5. (1) chocolate chip
6. (3) check mix squares
What to Do:
1. Spread your graham cracker with yellow frosting
2. Add 3 check mix squares as windows
3. Add 2 mini oreos as tires
4. Add blue frosting on one mini oreo
5. add chocolate chip to the top of the blue mini oreo to look like an eye
6. Add starburst sliver to blue mini orea as beak
Now you have the Pigeon Driving the Bus!! OH NO!!!

My young engineers had a bridge challenge in their LEGO class this week and their group won! They were able to withstand weight and work together to build it! 

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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Featured!!!

Are You Doing All You Can?

MAJOR BOGO SALE at MichellesCharmWorld on These Items!

Morning everyone! I truly hope you all had a great weekend and are ready to make this week, the best ever! Let's get our selling hats on and get going! Todays post is all about putting yourself out there. It's time to ask yourself are your TRULY doing all you can? Are you making yourself known to the public? We are going to explore some ideas I have already mentioned in past posts and then come to a conclusion.

The No Holds Barred Critique. We can all stand to learn something from people we don't know. We need to realize that we are not selling to our fullest potential if there are improvements that can be made on our shops. Online people have a tendency to be more honest than people looking at you face to face. I started a thread today, asking people to check out my shop and tell me honestly what they think.

WEAR IT OUT! Are you selling yourself to the max in public? Wear your pieces!! This can work for lots of people, not just jewelry sellers. Have your prints or artwork made into fun buttons so that you can pin them to your bags or if you are selling clothing, do you wear it yourself? Do your children wear your pieces? Do you keep a mini-photo book of your pieces so that people can look at a 'portfolio' of your stuff if they are interested? NOT KIDDING! I made little collages of my pieces in my photo editing program and printed them out on high quality photo paper and keep them in a little album in my purse. By now you must realize with all the junk I carry, I have an enormous purse! hahaha!! I can do a whole blog post on this one alone! haha!! The point is to use yourself as your best advertisement and DO NOT be afraid to hand over that business card when someone compliments your work! I'm working on a new idea for my business cards, but I will get back to you on that, once I work out the kinks!

Social Networking, This is a biggie! Are you out there? Do people know about your shop? Have you created your business page on Facebook? Do you twitter every now and then about a great sale or cool item you listed? REad more in depth on social networking on my post about it here. This is HUGE depending on your niche market, but nowadays so many people are on the net, that you really will have no problem finding them in these places! Heck, husbands grandmother is 90 and she's all over the net! So put yourself out there and meet some great new people!! I will be doing an in depth promoting thread on EACH social networking site that I do coming up soon! One day of Facebook, One day of Twitter, that sort of thing! Are you signing your posts on Message Boards with your shop link (if it's allowed)? How about your blog link, since that should have your Mini on it? If neither of these are allowed, put an eye catching photo of something that will lure that type of person into your shop!

Photos. Have you made sure they are not too shadowy or too white? I have this issue with the too-white photos I am noticing. They are just blending in with the backrounds! Time to go with a pale pink maybe! Remember, they don't have to look perfect or even close to perfect, they just have to be a bit noticeable! This one of mine is AWFUL, it's really blending in too much! I made it last night in the dark and you can totally tell! haha! Definately going to fix that up today!

Blog? Are you blogging?! It's so simple to ust throw photos up and chat about them! Tell me what you did last weekend, show me what you made today! Get chatty! I talk alot and have like three friends, none of which live by me! So here is where I get it all out in any way possible! Where do you dream about vacationing? What would you do with 5000.00? What would you DO FOR 1 million dollars? just get thinking about anything and then get typing!

If you have been getting the word out, in your photos you can tell what the product is, you are promoting to the heavens, you have improved on what others have asked you to improve on and you still are not getting the sales you truly believe your product is worth, then it's time to call it a day and close up shop and give up. Go on, throw it all away and close the door. What are you still doing here? Go on now!! HAHAHHAH! NOOOOOOOO! Not at ALL!!!! It's time to just roll up your sleeves and get busy! (As if you haven't been already!). It's time to set yourself apart from the bunch and SPREAD OUT!

Do you make paintings? Time to turn those paintings into ACEOs, Buttons, Magnets, Cards, Postcards, prints! Start thinking outside of what you have and bring in customers that can't afford those oh so gorgeous pieces!! I fell in love with a lighthouse painting on Etsy and let me tell you if I had had the 300.00 in my paypal account I probably would have bought it, but I didn't and I wanted it in any form! If they had offered a notecard set, a print, something else, it would have been mine!

Do you make Jewelry? Clothing? Bags? It's time to come up with a SIGNATURE piece. Something unique, something that when pulled up in the search function looks NOTHING like the others. My signature piece on Etsy is my Lego Bracelet. It's my best seller still to this day on and off Etsy and when I first started on Etsy was the first of it's kind. Now people are getting close, but still nowhere near the same. You can look at all the Lego Bracelets here. I'm still trying to come up with something fantastic as my signature look on Lollishops. If there is something you do really well, make it specacular add little bits and baubles to make them really shine. If you make bags of any sort, add a zipper pull or purse charm! They are super easy to make and you can make a simple one for barely anything at all! Need help? See about ordering them in bulk from a jewelry person on the same selling site you are on! Want to learn how to make them? Ask me, I can try and tell you how! Set yourself apart from the others somehow!


Now, you have done all that and still nothing? It's time to sit down with yourself and really ask. Does my stuff belong here? There are some places that are a true niche market and if you can't find your niche, you will have a problem getting to them. I am asking myself this over and over again on Lollishops. That is a true niche market selling venue and I just don't think I have the second Frou in Frou-Frou! hahaha! I see it as a market for delicate and frilly pieces and mine are bulky and of course chunky! haha! That's why I need to think really hard about my signature piece for there. I don't want to give up at all, I just want to find a way to fit in WITHOUT compromising my style! I hope I have helped even one person today!! I'm off to do some shop critiques on Etsy!


SHOP NEWS! The Last Page of my shop is on CLEARANCE MODE! I want to clear out for the New Year! I have marked things down up to 50%! Check it out because it's ALSO BOGO TIME! Buy one from that page and get a second item FREE from that page! All the items shown in the first photo of this post are the ones on SALE!

Inspiration...

Little Tikes My Size Dollhouse bought before she could even hold a doll!

I am asked about my inspiration a lot of the time when being interviewed about my work. I would love ot have something incredibly deep to say like 'the weather moves me to work in mysterious ways that even I have only begun to figure out' or whenever I hear a piece of Mozarts work, I envision creations coming together in my head. Instead my motivation comes from cleaning. Yup, I said it, cleaning. Not anyplace though, only one special and very colorful room. The playroom! It's bright, beautiful and best of all it's PLASTIC! From tea parties to tower building, dress up to race car racing, I can always think of something to create!

My Little Pony Pile of Fun

I always find it so fun that something like playing My Little Ponies can turn into something like a funky necklace. My Pretty Little Pony Necklace by MichellesCharmWorld 15.00

I love cleaning up after a tea party when everything is a mess and then suddenly I see something out of the clutter.

Pretty Party with Dessert Treats

When something as simple as tea cups and cupcakes can become a kitschy new bracelet.

Cupcake and Donuts Bracelet by MichellesCharmWorld 30.00

Legos are a favorite piece of inspiration for me! The colorful and bold pieces of plastic seem to hold magic in them for me!

Lego Duplo Building Blocks and Table

A pile of discarded legos shows me rings, necklaces, hair pins and bracelets. The colors and textures of toys make creating so exciting when I can look at little things like that and turn them into this:

Lego Fun Bracelet by MichellesCharmWorld 22.00

My daughter has the cutest Little Tikes vanity that i've coveted since before I knew I would have a baby girl in my life! I think we bought it for her when she was like 2 months old! Playing dress up always gets my brain working and makes my hands itch to get into the studio. I love to set up her perfumes and mirrors and other goodies in creative ways to make her want to play with them whenever she passes them!

Disney Princess Vanity Set

Since I can't play with her vanity all day, I knew I needed something for the big kids in life! The adults that love a little dress up in their own wardrobes!

Little and Sweet Vanity Brooch by MichellesCharmWorld 13.00

This post could go on and on, I find so much inspiration in my children and their goodies, that I don't ever want to stop playing with them! I hope this post inspires you to find something that truly gets you motivated into doing what you love! If you are already inspired by something, share it please! (Unless it's deep then I may get jealous again! hahha! Just kidding!)

I find that when I get into a rut, just going and tidying up the playroom does wonders for my brain! Now my husband is hoping I find inspiration in the bathroom next!