The Great Ice Cream Hop

For a few years now on every MLK day our family has been doing "The Great Ice Cream Hop." Why Martin Luther King Jr. Day? No reason. No idea. I guess because it feels like this day should have something more special to it, so this is how we decided to celebrate, and now you can too!

So heres what you do. Research some ice cream joints around your area. Choose one for each person playing. We have 6 in our family so we choose 6 places. It can be anywhere from McDonalds to a super fancy ice cream parlor, depending on your tastes and budget.

Write down each of your picks on a small piece of paper, then place them in a bowl and let each person draw one. Then grab a spoon for each person, get in the car and head out! 

Go to each place and whoever chose the paper for that joint gets to choose the flavor. If you have younger children some of these can get pretty...inventive. Everyone gets to share and taste the ice cream and decide what they think! 

Next, print out one my Ice Cream Hop score sheet for each person (You could do this before if you wanted to keep score as you are going). And rate your ice cream in 4 categories, taste, looks (how it looks before you each it), texture (creamy, gritty, etc), and flavor choice (if someone chose something crazy it may hurt their chances of winning), from one to five. Five being the best ever and one being not so good. 

Next print out the winners sheet. Add up everyones final score and decide which ice cream won!

Last, for those of you who love to torture your children, and turn fun things into learning activities like I do, print out this writing worksheet so your kids can write about what was their favorite, what wasn't and why they think their score sheet was the same or different from the winners score sheet. 

And there you have it! A fun activity for the whole family that will take a couple of hours and where everyone gets ice cream. Brilliant! 

What are you waiting for? Pick up the whole packet for free below, get started, and let me know how it goes!

THE GREAT ICE CREAM HOP

   

Sleeping Moon Clip Art FREEBIE

Hey all!

I know I've been missing from this blog for the past while... okay, long while. But I am working on revamping my blog so that I can share more fun ideas, activities and stories with you! So as an "I'm sorry I've been M.I.A." gift please accept some FREE Clip Art!

If you follow me on Instagram (Hopefully you all do! If you don't head over there and do it right now! I'm a fantastic Instagramer. Ha! ), you saw this adorable post:

Guess what?! That cute sleeping moon is all yours! Plus y'all know me and know that I can't do anything in color and not black and white, so a black and white copy is included! Thanks for dealing with my slackingness. I'll be back with more fun stuff and hopefully and new blog design soon! 

Click Here to get the Sleeping Moon Clip Art

If you do download and use this clip art check out my FREEBIES Terms of Use and leave me a comment letting me know what you think!! 

Happy Dreams! 

How to Use "Inside the..." Clip Art Sets

Hey all! Welcome to my blog in progress. Hopefully I'll get it fully up and running here in the next few weeks. But, whether it looks pretty or not, I wanted to do a quick tutorial on how to use my "Inside the..." clip art sets! They are fun little sets that add tons of versatility to your projects, and they are cute to boot! So to take away any fear of "how am I suppose to use these?!" I've got you covered! 

This tutorial is done on a Mac in Power Point, however, the same main concepts should apply to PC's and other programs. 

First "insert" your clip art. In this tutorial I used my "hungry boy," "pear," and "hungry boy front" clip art files. Next go to "reorder" then "reorder objects"  as pictured below.

This will open you up to this page. Drag the clip art into this order, "hungry boy" 1st, "pear" 2nd, "hungry boy front" 3rd. Then click on done, in the bottom corner. 

Next drag your "pear" over to the "hungry boy." Arrange it so it looks like he's eating it or what ever is best for your needs. ;)

Next line up "hungry boy front" with the "hungry boy" as best you can. Your clip art might "snap" into place and you'll be done, or you can highlight both "hungry boy front" and "hungry boy" by holding down shift and clicking on them each. Next click "align" then "align center" and "align middle."

Next high light all three files by dragging a box over all three then click "Group" as pictured. Make sure to get all three or you'll leave one behind! This will make the three files act as one and be able to be moved as one. 

Then Ta-Da! You're done! And you have an adorable customized clip art. :)

I have a few "Inside the..." clip art sets, with more soon to come! The Inside the Basket is FREE so you can try them out and see what you think! Check them out along with all of my fun clip art, digital papers, borders, and other products at my Teachers Pay Teachers store Deeder Do!  

A Little Bit About Me

I just finished this little project for "New Faces of TpT" e-book. Hopefully they choose mine. But if not I thought I'd share it here anyways. :) Here's a little bit about me and my store.  

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers

Every 4th of July, since I can remember, my family has done a barbeque with the whole extended family on my Dad's side. It's a day full of fun games, crazy people, and delicious food! And this year did not disappoint!

When my cousin and his adorable wife placed these delicious, Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers on the pot luck table, the whole tray was gone in a matter of minutes!!

Who could withstand the crunchy bacon, garlic and lime cream cheese, and spicy, fresh jalapeno?! And the fact that they are baked and not fried makes them a healthier alternative to regular jalapeno poppers!

Are you excited yet? You should be! Because once you realize how easy the recipe is you'll want to make them for every potluck (or chill at home snack) you go to!!

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers 

1 - 1 1/2  Cream Cheese (8 oz)- room temperature

2 cloves of garlic- minced

juice of 1/2 lime

15 jalapenos-halved and seeded

15 pieces bacon (cut in half) 

tooth picks

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl mix first three ingredients well. 

3. Spoon cream cheese mixture into jalapeno halves. 

4. Wrap bacon around stuffed jalapenos and secure with a tooth pick.

5. Place on cookie sheet then bake on middle rack for 20 minutes.

6. After 20 minutes broil poppers on high for 5 minutes (leave cookie sheet on middle rack).

 

Ta-Da!! They are done!! And so, so, write-home-to-yo-mama good!

So now your all set for next time you need to impress all your friends (or crazy extended family ;)). Don't worry, I got your back.

Why and How to Secure Your pdf--Mac version

If you're on Teachers Pay Teachers or another site that sells worksheets, documents, etc, you've most likely been told to "secure and flatten" your projects, especially if you are using pictures or clip art created by another person. As a clip artist, I specifically require my images to be secured in my terms of use. Let me go over why.

**PC users, don't worry, I didn't forget you! There is a link to a great tutorial for you at the end of this post**


1st- A pdf does NOT mean an image or piece of work is secured or flattened! Check out one of your unsecured/unflattened pdf and right click on an image or word.

Notice how it becomes highlighted and the word "copy" comes up? That's bad. That means if someone downloads your work, they can copy anything from off your document they want to. And it means if you are using another person's clip art, pictures, etc, you are most likely in violation of their terms of use. Yikes!

2nd- Even if you flatten your pdf, an unsecured pdf still can lead to trouble. Here I have a "flattened" pdf (I saved it as a .png first, and then converted it to a pdf). But if I take this image and put it into a program like Adobe illustrator or Powerpoint...

It'll open right up and the user can create things over my pdf. They can change my hard work and possibly even credit it as their own! (Oh, no you didn't!)


So lets teach you how to secure your pdfs! And luckily for Mac users it's quite simple. (Yay Mac!)

1. Open your project in Preview (or just double click. Default settings are to open in Preview).

2. Click File, Print (don't worry we are not really going to print it).

3. A print window will open. In the bottom left corner, click on the blue arrow next to "PDF."

4. An options scroll will open. Click on "Save as PDF."

5. Next, a "Save As" window will open. In the bottom, middle is a button that says "Security Options," click on it.

6. Click on the box that says "Require password to copy text, images and other content" (Note: Only this box! Don't Click on the box to "Require a password to open document" or "Require password to print document." That could lead to major trouble if you want to sell your work!). Put in your password and verify it (retype the password), then click okay.

7. Now click save. (Note: if you saved the pdf with the same name as your previous pdf, it'll ask if you want to replace the original, it's up to you if you want to or not. I usually do, because I don't want a bunch of similar pdf's cluttering up my computer)

8. Your done! You can check to see if it worked by opening your document and right clicking. When you do this there should be no option to copy.

And if you try to put it into Power Point, or another program, you'll get an awesome message similar to this!

Yay! Now go, young grasshopper, and secure all of your documents! You will be happy knowing that your documents are secure, and your clip artist, photographers, etc, will thank you!

If you are working on PC, the 3am Teacher has a fantastic tutorial for you!


Now that you know how to secure your files, I totally trust you ;), so head on over to my TPT store and pick up some fun clip art for your projects!

Lately

Hey all!

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I'm trying to beef up my clip art so I can start making some new products using my clip art...it's a crazy cycle. ;)

I've just barely finished this School Supplies Clip Art set, and mostly I'm in love! So darn cute!

These Alphabet Kids Clip Art make me so happy. They are silly and fun and I love them! 

This Ballerina Frames Clip Art came from the Alphabet Kids. Originally I was going to add them, but they just didn't seem to fit in. So I turned them into brightly colored frames and couldn't be happier! 

Seriously it's a horribly amazing addiction that I love! So fun being creative and see it come out so well! One of the funnest parts? I just made my first sale on at my TPT store! I made a total of $1.50! Woo! But still, I called my mom jumping up and down. I guess I'm easily excited, but I love my products and it made me so happy that someone else loved them enough to purchase them! 

Next week I have a fun teacher appreciation card FREEBIE I am working on, so make sure to check back then. As for me, I think I'll go work on some more clip art...

Don't forget, as May is coming up, that I got a wee bit excited and my May Calendar is already up!! Check it out!