kristybear DESIGNS: December 2013

How I Got my Cha-Ching Back!

If you have been around the TpT forums for any amount of time you have probably heard about the beloved cha ching sound that emits from your phone when you make a sale. With some recent app updates, the sound stopped. We were all heart broken. :( If you have an android phone (maybe iphones too) today is your lucky day! This tutorial should help you get that sound back into your life. Following these steps will help you set up a chaching sound anytime you receive a sale email from TpT. Enjoy!

Now this tutorial is a bit involved, but it can be applied to any type of email. Let's get started! :)

What you'll need:
An android phone
A gmail account
A computer

A cool Cha-Ching Sound (http://soundfxnow.com/tag/cha-ching/)
Some patience

Open your gmail account and create a label. You can follow the google tutorial for doing that here. Mine is called "TpT Sales Notification". Take a look at the screen shots below to see which boxes to check. You may also wish to check the "Skip the Inbox" option, this will prevent 2 sounds from the same email.

From your cell phone go to this link and download a cha ching sound or find one of your own. Move the cha ching sound into you notification sounds folder. On my phone the proper place to put the sound was My Files > All Files > Device Storage > Media > Audio > Notifications. If you already have a sound on your phone that you would like to use you can skip this step.

From you phone open your gmail app and press the menu key to get to your settings. Select your email account, scroll down to Manage labels and choose your label (the one you created on the computer). Then click on Sync Messages and choose last 30 days. Check Label Notifications. Click sound to choose your ChaChing sound. If you don't see your cha ching sound in the list, make sure you moved it to the right folder.

Save everything and wait. Once you make a sale you can enjoy the lovely sound of cha ching!

Repeat for any other email labels.

I don't have an iPhone but if I can get my hands on one I will try to make a tutorial for it too. If this worked for you feel free to leave a comment with the type of phone you have. I have a Samsung Galaxy S4.

My Goals for 2014!

What an interesting year this has been. This was us a few weeks ago at the mall! Sorry for the poor photo is was totally spur of the moment and my brother in law is not that great at photography. :)

-It started with me finally landing that job promotion I had been chasing for 2 years! I went from customer service to workforce management.

-In the middle of the year my 5 year long battle of trying to get my community college to apply my transfer credits correctly came to and end! Leaving me only 4 classes away from my Associates Degree in Elementary Education. I still have a long way away.

-My daughter is getting to that age where she has an opinion and can do things. While at times it has been a struggle I am so proud of her and all she has learned. This has spawned great moments like this:
Me: Zoey clean your toys.
Zoey: but mommy can you clean my toys?
Me: No. Can't you clean them?
Zoey: I'll clean a little and you can clean a lot.
Me: ummm why can't you clean them all?
Zoey: because you are the best cleaner in the whole wide world!
Me: Nice try
And also Wofy (that creepy little purple fish we picked up from Christmas Tree Shops for $.75) came into our lives. This is her favorite thing ever.

-Throughout the year we were able to visit some pretty fun places. We ventured to the beach and to a local botanical garden. My husband and I really enjoy carnivorous plants. We recently started our own little collection but it was nice to see some in the outdoors. We are crossing our fingers that our carnivorous plant collection makes it through the winter!

-In November I became a seller on Teachers pay Teachers and have enjoyed every minute!

What does my future hold? If I only I knew. I do have some goals for this upcoming year.

-Graduation in Spring of 2014! I still will not be able to teach but I will have an associates degree and after 8 years of schooling I am finally ready to have at least 1 degree to my name.

-On January 4th I will celebrate my 8 year wedding anniversary!

-I have a few goals related to blogging and my TpT store as well. The first goal is to reach 100 products in my store. I would like to help as many TpT sellers as I can. I have already signed up for the mentor program and I have sort of started my own TpT blog giveaway outreach program as well. It will be interesting to see how this develops. One day I would love to be making enough money from my TpT store so that I do not have to work full time and instead I can go to school full time. I don't want to spend another 12 years taking classes instead of teaching them. :)

I wish everyone a successful and happy new year. What are your new years resolutions?

~Mrs. Bearfield~

Giveaway #2!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and is enjoying their time off. I am back this week with 2 AWESOME new sellers! Joining up with me for this weeks giveaway is Kb3teach and Brittani Black. Be sure to check out their stores, I am sure you will find something of interest.

Hey, y'all! I am Brittani Black from Mrs. Black's Bees. I am in my 6th year of teaching. I taught PreK for 4 years and then moved to Kindergarten. I have a Bachelors degree in Early Childhood and a Masters in ESOL. I am a newlywed. I got married June 22, 2013.

Hi, I am KB from KB3Teach! My heart has always been with the struggling students in my classroom. What a joy to see that awesome "light" click on when they finally get it. I've developed some academic intervention products designed just for these students, with a focus on foundational skills in both reading and math. I sure hope you will stop by and take a look!

Hi! I'm Kristy with On the way to Mrs. Bearfield's Class! I am currently working in Workforce Management and going to school to get my Elementary Education degree. I'm on that special 12 year plan! :) I have been married for 7 years and we have one super energetic 3 year old daughter. I am a techie. I have dabbled in photography and graphics design and currently create clipart for my Teachers pay Teachers store. Be sure to stop by and check out my current freebies. Have fun!

Good luck!

~Mrs. Bearfield~

Entry -Form

New Year's Resolution Sneak Peak!

In just a few days I will be posting a more in depth look at my 2014 goals but I thought it would be fun to link up with A Peach for the Teach. Above is a sneak peak of what I am planning for 2014. Be sure to come back next week to see my full resolution post.

Have your own resolutions? I would love to hear them. Leave them in the comments.

~Mrs. Bearfield~

More Elfing Around!

Here are a few more Elf on the Shelf ideas for you and they are classroom approved! (not classroom tested) hehe Our girl elf Harry delivered a jingle bell necklace for Zoey. Harry also took out all of her books and had a nice little read in the middle of the living room.

Everyday I find myself searching for quick and easy Elf on the Shelf ideas. I am not sure where I first saw the idea of using cotton balls as snow but it worked for us. Harry led a snowy cotton ball trail all the way to Zoey's bedroom. This worked as a double activity. Zoey decided to have a blast with these snow balls and throw them all over the place. She threw them in the air and pretended like it was snowing. I was completely OK with this because these super light balls could not hurt a fly. Ahhh worry free fun! On day 2 of having the cotton balls out she is still entertained by them!

After having the cotton balls thrown all over the house we could not use them for their normal purpose, so I copied this Spiderman idea. He had to swing in and save Lalaloopsy and some random chick! My daughter LOVES super heroes so this was right up her ally. She did not take her eyes of of these spidey events for a good minute. Which is FOREVER in 3 year old land! :)

Cool! As I was typing this post and uploading the images Google sent me a message about an animated photo that Google automatically created. I never heard of such a thing but the first photo is what they sent to me. So neat!

What has your Elf been up to this week? What is your Elf's name?

~Mrs. Bearfield~

1st Giveaway!

I am super excited to be working with a few awesome Teachers pay Teachers sellers to host my very 1st GIVEAWAY!! We have all been working really hard to get ourselves established by creating quality products. We felt that a giveaway was the perfect way to share our stores and reward current followers! There are 3 stores participating this week including myself. We are each giving away 1 item "Winners Choice" from our stores. You actually get to choose 3 items (1 from each store!)

Hi! I'm Laura from Differentiation Station Creations. I am currently on a public school teaching "sabbatical", while I stay home with my kids. I have a 6 year old son and 3 year old daughter. I am a special education teacher with experience in all kinds of settings. Active learning and differentiation are my passions. I just started blogging, so you are with me at the beginning of my journey. Thanks for checking me out!

Hi! I'm Karen with Pritchett's Printables. I'm a Speech-Language Pathologist at a Pre-K - 2nd Primary School. I love creating products for Speech Therapists and Teachers! I try to include curriculum as much as possible in my therapy sessions as many of my speech babies also struggle academically. I have been married 13 years, and we have two children. My son is 11, and my daughter is 8. They are growing up way too fast! I'm new to the blogging world, but I'm enjoying it very much despite the learning curve! I think you'll find my blog to be an eclectic little collection of my interests - reading, arts and crafts, Speech Therapy, and Education. Thank you for checking out our giveaway!

~Mrs. Bearfield~

Entry -Form

Create! - Glittery Gingerbread Man

This semester has been lots of fun! I was able to observe and participate in a local kindergarten class! My host teacher Mrs. W was amazing! After my official class visits I had to go back and pick something up and I thought I would stay a while and help out. Mrs. W offered up this fun craft for me to do with my daughter!

These are the supplies we used.

I helped put the glue in the "right" place for the icing and eyes but I let her do the buttons and mouth.

Our little gingerbread man now proudly hangs in our living room. Which reminds me about these Scotch Restickable shapes. These things are amazing for quickly hanging things up! Be careful as the could tear the paper. (I was not paid to talk about Scotch but I did get a free sample of these things a while back.)

What fun things did you do with your kids this week? Either your at home kids or your school kids? :)

~Mrs. Bearfield~

A few Elf Activities from Last Year!

(This is a re-post (with some added commentary) from my other blog of our Elf activities from last year.)

Day 6 -Elf (and technically my BFF) brought some BINGO dabbers. We used them to decorate wrapping paper. This might be a fun activity for the classroom too!

Day 7 -Elf turned the milk green! (SN: Don't try this at home. gross details---> My husband changed a diaper shortly after my 2 year old consumed this festive milk and apparently she had festive poo.):

Day 8 -Our Elf got a new name on day 8! Her new name is Sparkly! My daughter came to me and said, "Mommy, elf name is Sparkly!" This was quite random, but I was thankful because I like Sparkly much better than the old name Elf. And you can see Sparkly above after she just made an X-mas tree.

*This year our girl elf has been named Harry.*

Go here to view all of the other Elf on the Shelf ideas I have used last year!

Anyone else out there participating in this fun yet creepy tradition that is sweeping the nation? Leave your ideas in the comments and be sure to check back frequently as I will be posting all of our Elf activities right here.

~Mrs. Bearfield~

Tips for New Bloggers!

I just started my TpT blog a few weeks ago and it has been a slow process getting everything updated. I had finals this week so that has taken up a lot of my time. I wanted to share a few tutorials that I have found helpful thus far. If you have something to add, leave a comment below. I hope you find these helpful as well.

Want to remove the padding around your blogs banner?
Try this: http://www.cinsarah.com/2012/01/how-to-remove-padding-from-your-header.html

Want to remove the Blogger Nav Bar at the top of your blog?
Try this: http://helplogger.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-remove-blogger-navbar.html

Need to remove the gray border around your blog images?
Try this: http://helplogger.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-to-remove-blogger-pictureimage.html

Want to add a Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers link on your facebook?
Try this: http://connecticutbloggers.com/easy-way-to-add-pinterest-to-facebook-with-woobox/

As I utilize new tutorials I will update this post, so keep checking back!

Elf on the Shelf 2013

I was a little late getting started with our Elf on the Shelf this year. :( Luckily my DH has been helping out this year. Our elf name is Harry and it is a she. My 3 year old loves stickers and she really loved finding Harry under the tree covered in stickers! We also had Harry "roast" some marshmallows. I am already running out of ideas. Yikes!

Both of these Elf on the Shelf ideas can easily be adapted for the classroom. Leave a link or 2 in the comments of what your elf has been up to this year.

Blog Followers?

I have barley had time to work on this blog. I just realized today that I had no way for anyone to follow my blog! YIKES!! What was I thinking? This is still a work in progress for me. Finals week really eats up all of my time. I cannot wait for my little break!!

Here is a link to my Facebook. Soon I will have everything set up and pretty! :)