Saturday, March 30, 2013

Freebie Clipart Sets and Spring Cleaning Sale!

You know when you find something you like and you just go crazy over it? Well I found some color combos that I am in love with and I have been going crazy creating some freebies clipart for you :) I just love the simple combination of the light and dark shades of these bright spring colors.

I know you are probably up to your neck in pencil clipart with all my seasonal pencil freebies, but I made more.....but I think these might be my very favorite pencil freebie!

How stinkin' happy do those pencils look!? I'm telling you, the color combos are my favorite!!

Another freebie that I whipped up with these colors are these two star freebies. Just a warning for you....after I get through all the seasons of pencil freebies, it looks like seasonal star clipart is coming next :) Hope you like stars!!!


Just click on the images above if you want some of these freebies. Like all my freebies, you are welcome to use them for personal or commercial use or freebies, but please give credit to Creative Clips by Krista Wallden with a link to my TpT store  (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Krista-Wallden), I really appreciate it!!

Don't forget to stop by my big Spring Cleaning Sale the runs through tomorrow. 20% off of my entire store!


Friday, March 29, 2013

Spring Cleaning Sale on EVERYTHING!



Now that it is officially spring, that calls for......SPRING CLEANING! Now don't worry, I'm not telling you to go windex or chlorox anything. It's time to do some spring cleaning of your TpT wish list with some fabulous sales/deals!

I was looking through my wish list the other day on TpT and oh my goodness, it had grown quite long! So, I loaded up my cart with some great resources to use with my kiddos in the upcoming weeks and cleaned it out. I started thinking that maybe other people could use some "spring cleaning" for their wish lists so I threw out the idea to some of my bloggin buddies for a big spring cleaning sale! They agreed, so the Spring Cleaning Sale was born :)

My entire store will be 20% off for all of Saturday and Sunday!! (March 30 & 31st) Now's the best time to clear out that wish list of products that you want to use for the rest of the school year with your kiddos, or in the case of clipart- stock up on all those seasonal sets that you are finally going to have time to create with in the summer months!

So grab a cup of coffee (or beverage of your choice...wink-wink), sit back, relax and let the spring cleaning begin! Cleaning never felt so good!

Check out all these other great sales with the linky below!


Friday, March 22, 2013

I'm Seeing Stars....{Freebie}!

I've been seeing stars lately- and it's not just because there are 405,304 things running around my head that need to be done....or maybe it is?! Or because of a sinus infection....or the pair of contacts that I am wearing that have a chunk missing from one of them, but I don't have time to go to the eye doctor haha

I think the real reason why I'm seeing stars is because I have some new freebies for you, and they are all about the stars :)

Check out these star-studded freebies- just click each preview picture to zip over to my store and download them for free!

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Science Giveaway!!

Just wanted to let you know about a fantastic giveaway going on over at Teaching First!


There are so many fun products you could win if you enter! 
My Little Scientists clipart set is one of the items you could snatch up if you are a lucky winner! 

Hop on over and check out the rest of the goodies by clicking {HERE}!



Sunday, March 10, 2013

Over 25 free clipart sets and fonts for EVERYONE!

So in high school, my economics teacher tried to tell me that nothing in life is free.......something about how there is always a cost to SOMEONE, whether it is their time, their opportunity cost or what not. He was a great teacher, BUT....to this girl, free is free. I don't ask questions.

There is also a saying that "Nothing in life is free" - I'm sure there is some good reasoning and explanation behind that one too, but to prove ALL of them wrong, I wanted to remind you about all the free clipart sets in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I know a lot of people are starting out on TpT and you are looking for ways to make products without spending a lot of money on clipart before you see if they will sell. It does take time and I am still working on it myself on TpT. Thankfully I probably get more excitement over a finished clipart set than any of my buyers, so it's a win-win for me even if it doesn't become a big seller ha! TpT is not a "get-rich-fast" type of thing. However, if you are looking to start selling on TpT, please feel free to take advantage of these freebies sets to jumpstart you products.

One {teensy, eesny} reminder that I would like to make is that you MUST give credit to me and my Teachers Pay Teachers store in your product description or credits page whether you use free or purchased clipart from me. I love offering freebies, but I have found a lot of products that don't give credit at all and it kind of makes me feel like people are taking advantage of the freebies/products. I don't want to take the spotlight off of you and your products, so inserting my button and a simple link on your end credits page is perfect :) Thank you for understanding!!

You can find my simple Terms of Use  {HERE} they are easy I promise!
Here is the jpeg file for my logo. You can just click on the image and save it, it is also included in all my freebie packs under the TOU folder :) I appreciate it!


These are all COMPLETELY free sets in my store.... I was too lazy to link back EVERY item, so here is the link for the FREE SECTION in my TpT store where all these sets are listed. 



















I also have a free border pack (which I couldn't find the preview picture for on my computer, but here's the link: 12 FREE BORDERS) and many free fonts in my store that you should check out too! (The FREE SECTION link above also will take you to where these free fonts are.)




If you are a new seller and are looking to buy some sets to get started, these are the THREE main sets that I recommend from my store because they are the most versatile sets and you can use them in so many subject areas/seasons or they have a lot of variety and you get more bang for your buck. It comes out to $12.00 for 100 images! All black lines are included for the color image previews.

Just click on the preview pictures to check out each of these packs in my store :)

Hope everyone is having a good weekend....not sure how it is already Sunday and I'm pulling out my lesson plans/binders, but I guess that hour I lost for daylight savings really fast-forwarded the weekend!

Enjoy the freebies!



Saturday, March 9, 2013

Showing Evidence Freebie and New Spring Fling Clipart

If the titles of my blog posts are any indication of how well I can focus on one specific task- that doesn't look very good. I never can focus on one thing in these blog posts- hence the extremely long and random combinations in my titles :)

My kiddos were WIRED this week! They definitely have spring fever. My. goodness. It probably didn't help that it was Dr. Seuss day on Monday and we had a spirit week the rest of the days. Something about Wacky Wednesday doesn't exactly scream "concentration." :) Don't get me wrong- I love spirit week because I can wear jeans or comfy clothes. Plus the kiddos deserved some fun distractions. BUT. It was a complete battle between spirit/fun and testing/instruction all week. I finally had a "come to jesus" talk with the class on Friday. I actually think it helped. Last year, if I had a talk like that with my firsties, I wasn't always sure it got through, but with third graders this year, it was actually a mutual discussion. We'll see, that might just be my Saturday-induced optimism talking.... :)

Speaking of spring fever, I just finished my newest "Spring Fling" and "Happy Snails" clipart sets and posted them to my store! I have used a lot of pastel colors in my spring sets, but I made a new color scheme for these sets (and some other spring sets I plan on making) because I needed some extra energizing sets after this week! Check out these little splashes of spring color....

If you want to check out these sets in my store, you can click on the links below.


Onto the other part of my random blog title......If there was one word that would be tattooed across my forehead lately, it would be "EVIDENCE." If I had a dollar for every time I said that word ("Where's your evidence?" "Find evidence to support your claim" "Support your answers with evidence" "Find the evidence in the text" "Do you have evidence for that?" ETC), I could retire. Surprisingly, it doesn't bother my kiddos at all and they FEED off of showing evidence. For this reason, the most precious half piece of paper in my classroom is this little beauty:


I made up my own version of a "Showing Evidence" reference sheet because I needed it to include a few more evidence stems than the ones I was finding on TpT or pinterest. In our reading lessons, we are focusing on the kiddos using text AND visual cues, so I wanted some stems specific to each. Also, we have discussed how to talk about poetry, so I wanted one in there with "stanza." My students have been using these little reference strips in pretty much every subject! They even started pulling them out in math and changing some of the wording around to work with their conclusions based on graphs, charts and word problems. God bless them and their evidence-eager hearts! One of my kids suggested that I laminate them for each student so they can "take it to fourth grade with them." I told him that I would make a special "Showing Evidence in Fourth Grade" strip....printed in COLOR....and laminated for everyone in the class if they found evidence to answer every reading comp question on the DCAS (state test). I hope I will be needing to buy lots of color ink soon!

If you think your kiddos could use these same strips, you can snatch them up below from google docs. I just print them out and cut them down the middle. And, per my student's suggestion, you could laminate them so they last forever and ever :)


Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead before bed tonight. Nothing like LOSING and hour of sleep- but  at least it is more EVIDENCE that spring is on it's way......sorry I couldn't resist :)

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

FREE Star Pencil Clipart and Read Across America Day Decor!

I will take advantage of any excuse to celebrate and have cake.....or have any kind of food in general. Even more- I'll take advantage of any excuse to decorate my classroom :)

My school celebrated Read Across America and Dr. Seuss's birthday on Monday with lots of birthday festivities. At our school-wide assembly, the teachers put on a fun play for the kiddos. I am not an actor.  Yes, I have been known to sing and do some dances while I teach (anything to clarify those concepts, right!?) But my performing stops at the classroom level...haha So I strategically volunteered to design and make the set for the play so my job was done-zo before 500 kids packed the gym. Costumes and performing....not my thing. 

After overcoming a few challenges such as the helium shortage in my town, a few mechanical problems with the cherry picker to hang decorations from the ceiling... (apparently you have to charge those machines...who knew? :) everything did come together and it turned out well- thanks to a lot of help from my friends! Here is as peek at the birthday decor....


My vision for this birthday celebration also included a confetti cannon that would shoot a blast of confetti in the air out the top of the birthday cake (which is made out of a covered piece of scaffolding). That also means that someone would need to be up IN the scaffolding inside the cake to shoot it off... so I actually spent the whole play sitting up at the top of the birthday with confetti cannons. 

Here's my view :)


That is our district photographer in the corner, so I am hoping he captured some of the confetti in action. If he did, I will post some more pictures another day. I'm sure you will be anxiously waiting ;)

The decorations didn't stop in the gym, of course my classroom had to be "seussed" out....


And you know my monkey had to join in on the fun....


And some cute curtains and truffula trees, too!


The kiddos had so much fun! It was a nice change of pace because we are in the thick of our state testing and this day was test-free!

I have tons to post about this week, but I am learning to be more focused with my blog posts so they don't end up taking an hour to write and an hour for you to read (because I'm sure you read EVERYTHING I ramble on and on about haha). I had another FANTASTIC Dollar Tree "find" over the weekend that I will be sharing later in the week, some freebies for helping students cite evidence and new clipart sets :)

I do have a new set of star pencils- inspired by my birthday celebration decor :) This star-studded freebie is posted in my TpT store {HERE}
Alright, party's over :) I'm off to bed. Happy Hump Day tomorrow- always feels good to get to Wednesday!