Save the Dates!

Okay ya'll!  I am so excited to finally get a chance to sit down and work on this dream of mine: The Adorable Mess.  I have been completely and utterly consumed with wedding planning, teaching, and now we're in the process of moving.  Ahh!  Life has been completely crazy.

I'm planning to do a series over the next few weeks featuring the wedding: what I've learned from wedding planning, resources that were helpful, and advice for brides to be.  Today's post is pretty short, featuring our Save the Date, a "save the date" timeline, and some great resources for printing your save the dates.

Since we got married on a holiday weekend, we knew ahead of time that Save the Dates were going to be REALLY important for two reasons: so that people could set aside that weekend in advance to actually come to our wedding, and to make sure that they were able to get hotel rooms at a reasonable rate.  We didn't want our guests to have to pay an arm and a leg to share in our special day.

The time line for getting the save the dates and the invitations out was probably one of the most stressful parts of the wedding for me, considering the fact that printing and production time usually takes about twice as long as you expect it to.  Talk about wanting to pull your hair out!  Ahhhh!  Therefore, to save you some stress, I'm sharing some hind-sight that I wish I'd considered.

Save the Date Timeline

2-3 Months Before Save the Dates are Mailed (8 Months before the Wedding)

Have your Engagement Pictures Taken (if you want them on your Save the Date)
If you want your engagement pictures on your Save the Date, then make sure you take your engagement photos at least 2-3 months before the Save the Dates need to be mailed.  Things you have to factor in are the photographers personal timeline and the time it takes to edit your photos.  If you're looking for some advice on Engagement Pictures, check out my post Planning your Engagement Photos.

Set Up a Wedding Website
One of the MOST important things you can include on your Save the Date is your website information. Why?  Because it directs your guests to all of the necessary information once your Save the Date arrives.  It is a way to get information to your guests without filling your Save the Date to the brim with information.  I'll be putting up a post later in the week about website options.

1 Month Before Save the Dates are Mailed (7 Months before the Wedding)

Collect AddressesFacebook message everyone, call, text, do whatever you need to do to get those addresses, and make an Excel document of your addresses.  The sooner you have these cataloged and in your computer, the better. 

Decide on your Photo and Layout
I had all kinds of visions for our Save the Date.  However, what really defined our ultimate design choice was our favorite engagement photo.  Sit down and really look at your pictures.  Which image really captures you as a couple?  Which image reflects your wedding design?  From there, try out a few different layouts, remembering to keep your photo in mind.  Also, what kind of save the date will you send?  We chose to send a post card for two reasons: it saved money on printing AND it saved money on postage.  Currently, it only costs about $0.35 per postcard to mail a postcard within the United States.

Choose your Printing Company
This is probably the choice that is the most important.  You'll need to check production and shipping timelines to make sure you get them in enough time to address them!  See below for some printing companies.  Also, you want your Save the Dates to be adorable.  Give yourself enough time to play with design choices and choose the one that makes you the happiest.

What to include on your Save the Dates

• Name of the Bride and Groom
• Date of the Wedding
• City and State of the Wedding
• Website information
• A note that a "formal invitation will follow." 
• Any other pertinent information that can't be communicated via the website. 

Order your Save the Dates
Other than paying for your Save the Dates, this is the best part.  I couldn't wait to get mine in the mail! When you do place your order, make sure you order 10-20 more than you plan to use.  Sometimes you make mistakes.  

2 Weeks before Save the Dates are Mailed

Address your Save the Dates

Remember that Excel Document of all or your addresses?  Now is the time to put it to good use.  Grab some good music or a favorite TV show and start addressing those beauties!

Purchase Postage

Head to your local Post Office to purchase postage.  FYI: Post card postage is cheaper than standard postage.  Nothing like saving a bit of money! :)

Design and Complete your Website

Make sure that website is up and running for your guests to view once they get their Save the Date.

6 Months before your Wedding

Mail your Save the Dates!

Traditionally, Save the Dates are mailed about 6 months before your wedding to make sure that your guests are in the loop with all of you wedding events.  Once you've mailed them, sit back and get excited.  Things are starting to happen!

Save the Date Printing Companies

After much research and being as picky as I am about fonts, I ended up choosing to print our photos through a company called Minted.  They have some ADORABLE designs to choose from.  However, the photo that we ultimately chose really controlled which design we went with.  

Some great options include:

• Minted
• Wedding Paper Divas
• Etsy
• Shutterfly
• Paperless Post (You can also send an e-card as a Save the Date through this company).
• Paper Source
• Love vs. Design 

Our Save the Date! 

Happy Designing,

Katie

Planning Your Engagement Photos

I have to apologize...I think I fell off the map for a bit and have missed posting to The Adorable Mess. Teaching is the most wonderful and the most challenging thing that I've ever done, and it consumes most or all of my time. Not to mention that I'm trying to plan a wedding on top of it all.

I've been meaning to share our engagement pictures with you guys and thought that you might enjoy them.   I'm not going to lie, I stalked Pinterest for hours trying to gather ideas, but in the end what I really wanted was something original.  I was stoked when they were finished and could not have been more pleased with the way that they turned out, but I learned a lot from the process and thought that I'd share my findings with those bride-to-bes out there!

1. Do your research on your photographer.
When I was choosing our photographer, I wanted to pick someone who would be able to gather the essence of us and of our style.  Brett is pretty basic and I tend to be quite a bit more detailed.  I also LOVE vintage photography, so I was interested in finding someone who could capture all of those elements into our photos.  I ended up asking the sister of one of my bridesmaids to do our engagement photos (Rebekah Bronwen Photography) and was tickled with the way she seemed to understand and capture my vision.  We shared emails back and forth, along with my Pinterest board.  If you want to check out some of her other work, visit her Facebook page for some STUNNING shots.

2. Think about what defines you as a couple.
Brett and I met at a camp called River Valley Ranch.  It is a christian camp in northern Maryland full of rolling hills and, in my mind, it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.  When I was thinking about us, I really wanted to do our engagement photos where our story began: at camp.  We met there and, through the Lord's faithfulness, we grew in our love there.  "The Ranch," as we call it, and our relationship with the Lord is what drew us together, which is why I ended up having our photos taken there.  Brett and I are also pretty easy going and we love the outdoors, which is why I chose a more casual wardrobe and it influenced our choice to do our photos outside.

3. Control your "Pinterest pickiness."
When I began this engagement photo journey, I felt myself wanting certain photos or situations that I found through other websites, blogs and on Pinterest.  While it was important that I gather ideas, the ultimate success of our photos depended upon my trust in our photographer to use her skills and abilities to guide us through the photos that we envisioned.  Did I end up with every photo that I pinned to my engagement photo board? No.  Did I end up with the pictures that I wanted? Yes, yes and yes.  I was absolutely THRILLED with the results and most of them didn't even derive from my Pinterest account.

4. Give yourself plenty of time to get your photos back.
I wanted to use our photos in our Save the Dates, which go out about 6-8 months before the wedding.  What I didn't account for was the turn around time to get our photos back.  We were pushing the deadline to get our Save the Dates out, even though our photographer was prompt and had the pictures to us in the timeline that we originally agreed upon.  I just wish I had given myself a bit more room to work.

Here is the amazing work of our wonderful photographer.  Check her out on Facebook if you're in the Maryland area, she's incredibly talented and so much fun to work with!

Life Cycles and Project Work

I have the amazing privilege of working for a charter school that utilizes project-based learning as one of their core values.  Each quarter we get the chance to work on one major project that integrates elements of the the North Carolina Essential Standards and Math and Language Common Core standards to produce high quality work that is both meaningful to the student and that teaches them the skills of a twenty-first century learner.  I don't care who you are, high-stakes testing doesn't even hold a candle to the skills and abilities that we get a chance to cultivate in our classrooms on a daily basis through our project work.  My kids LOVE it, they are genuinely curious and it perpetuates natural curiosity and inquiry because of the level of student interest.

I could ramble on for DAYS about how much I enjoy our quarter long projects, but instead I thought I would share with you some of the work that we did over the quarter and show you the work that displayed at our project celebration.

We launched our trip with an inquiry based trip to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham.  There, the students had the opportunity to visit the butterfly house where they participated in a workshop that focused on the life cycle of the butterfly.  From that visit we built our understanding of life cycles based on the knowledge that we had gained from our life cycle experience at the Museum of Life and Science.

Upon our return we began to brainstorm how we could turn our classroom into a museum about life cycles by the end of the project.  We thought about the necessary elements of a museum and the things we might need to include in our room and in our studies to make sure that we were able to create a museum of our learning in our classroom.  Now, I had already mapped out this project before we brainstormed our ideas, thinking ahead about what ideas they might develop.  After their initial ideas were collected, I modified some of my plans to meet the student interests, while continuing to focus upon the necessary standards that I needed to cover with this unit.

Knowing that our museum would be focused on life cycles, we launched into a study of various animal life cycles.  We tried to focus on a read aloud and a diagram of the life cycle that students had a chance to make after learning different facts about animal life cycle.  We studied the life cycle of the honey bee, lady bug, chicken, turtle and frog.  We also wanted to make sure that the students knew the expectations for the quality of their work, so we began by introducing our beautiful work anchor chart!


After that, we moved straight into our life cycle study.  Here are the books we read and the crafts that we used to display our learning:


Butterfly

We began with a review of the life cycle of a butterfly.  We read From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman and created a paper plate craft to display our learning.

Ladybug

Considering the fact that the life cycle of a ladybug is very similar to that of a butterfly, we moved next into the study of the ladybug and read A Ladybug's Life by John Himmelman.

For our craft inspiration Pinterest led us to the blog, Lucky in Learning.  Check out her craft suggestion below! 

Chicken
The chicken life cycle was our next stop in our study of life cycles.  The Magic School Bus Cracked a Yolk is a great kick off to the study of this life cycle.  For our read aloud, we studied From Egg to Chicken by Anita Ganeri.

The anchor chart:

Our hands-on craft:

Observation Journals: 

Great learning happens when students get a chance to observe and experience a life cycle in person.  In order to provide this experience for our students, we decided to order Painted Lady butterflies for our classroom.  Students kept an observation journal during the butterflies stay in our classroom. We reviewed how to make good observations and watched Brain Pop Jr's video on making observations.  Check out our anchor chart and our observation journals!

You can find a free download of the observation guide on my Teacher's Pay Teachers page!

Project Celebration

At the end of our projects, we always have a project celebration. We ended up putting on a Life Cycle Museum and this is the display of some of the great life cycle projects that we did!

We also made large life cycle sculptures of the butterfly's life cycle.  Here are two of our sculptures:

Other Educational Components:  
In addition to our life cycle displays, we also did scientific drawings of butterflies that we identified from our slides, we did a venn diagram comparing different animal life cycles and we created display boards that displayed facts and depicted each animal at different stages in its life cycle.

Married and Bright: Inspiration from Minted

It is all I can do to control my Christmas craze by early November.  My poor family and friends know that by Thanksgiving I have done all I can do to control my need to listen to Christmas music, take in the holiday merriment and bask in the joy that is Christmas.  I got a little ahead of myself this year...I promise I was only in the middle of planning my wedding when I noticed this lovely little contest from Minted, featuring holiday cards.  I tried, I resisted, but I just couldn't help myself.  Anticipating our first Christmas together in 2014, I went ahead and themed my board "Married and Bright."  I hope that you enjoy!

Merry and Bright board by Katie. See more unique stationery

Discounts and Perks EVERY Teacher Should Know

So, you're like most teachers out there...broke and the availability of supplies, read alouds and technology never seems to be sufficient.  Times are tough, but you're dedicated and YOU want to make sure that your students have what they need to succeed, which is why you're willing to sacrifice what little money you have to ensure that your classroom is an inviting, engaging place.  

Thankfully, there are many stores out there that also appreciate your willingness to serve in the classroom and with a little questioning you'll find that many places provide a discount or a perk to teachers.  Here is a list of stores that I've run across within the last few years that offer discounts or rewards to teachers.  I've already listed some retail stores that offer teacher discounts in an earlier post. Check these out, along with the discounts at retail clothing stores, and enjoy saving a little green along the way.  Please note that I was in no way asked to advertise these stores.  These are stores I've personally found to provide teacher discounts. :)

JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store - 15% off every day purchases and 25% off on educator appreciation days. 

Barnes and Noble- 20% off of your in-store purchases.  The only downside is that it doesn't work for coffee. :(

Staples- 5% back in rewards, along with free online shipping and special offers.  

Office Max- Office Max offers the Max Perks program, which gives you $10 for every $75 you spend. 

Michael's - 15% off in the store with your Teacher I.D. Sometimes stores will take any document that proves you work at a school if you forget your I.D. 

A.C. Moore- 15% off in store if you have your ID.  They don't have anything advertising a discount on their website, but the stores I've been to usually offer a discount. 

Apple Store- The Apple Education Store offers a variety of discounts for schools and teachers when you find your school on their website and order through the website.  

Adobe- Software discounts are available for teachers.  The software discounts vary, depending on the product.  They are currently offering the Creative Cloud to Teachers for $20 a month.  (Photoshop, Elements, Illustrator and more...)

Scholastic- Now called the Reading Club, Scholastic offers teacher bonus points on parent orders using your access code.  Teachers can use their bonus points to purchase books from Scholastic's website.  They do a GREAT job of providing special offers to help you rack up those points!

The Container Store- They offer the "Organized Teacher Discount" which advertises discounts to be shared with teachers throughout the year.  

Finally- be sure to ASK EVERY STORE if they offer teacher discounts.  Many places will be happy to throw in a discount if you have your I.D.  There is absolutely no harm in asking! 

Happy Saving,

Katie

Our "UP" inspired Hopes and Dreams

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I have to begin my saying that I work at THE BEST school.  I truly, deeply, love my job and the team of teachers that I work with.  Working at a charter school, in my opinion (and I know there are others out there who disagree, which is fine), gives you the best of both worlds.  We get kids from all walks of life, but it makes a HUGE difference when families choose to attend your school, rather than being forced to attend.  At our charter school, we not only have an academic curriculum, but we also have a social curriculum which is called Responsive Classroom.  

Responsive Classroom has you use the first week of school to really formulate and think about what the students' hopes and dreams are for the year.  We sit down and really think about all of the things that we, individually and communally, would like to see happen for ourselves and for our classroom.  It takes a bit of stretching to help them understand what the possibilities can be, but after awhile they start to roll with the idea.  We then used our hopes and dreams to guide the discussion for what rules we would need in our classroom to make it possible for everyone (including the teacher) to reach their hope or dream for the year.  

Once the hopes and dreams are created, the purpose is to create a beautiful display that will stay up in the classroom for the ENTIRE year.  We'll reference it regularly to help us remember EXACTLY what we hope to achieve this year.  Which, led me to some detailed brainstorming, because there are FEW things I like enough to leave up in my classroom ALL YEAR LONG and that the kids would find inspiring. 

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how I wanted to display our hopes and dreams.  Now, for those of you who know me...and for those of you who are just now getting to know me through this post, you'll know that I deeply love the movie "UP" from Disney Pixar.  I mean, talk about and hope and a dream...that guy had it going.  So, drawing from my love of UP, I had the students write their hopes and dreams on a balloon template, which I copied in many different colors and then we put them up in the sky with some beautiful clouds to showcase the bright colors.  However, I was left with the decision of what to put on the bottom of the balloons.  In the movie there was a house attached to the bottom, but that wasn't at all applicable.  I mean, this applied specifically to our classroom but drawing a "classroom" was tough to conceptualize in a bulletin board display.  Knowing that our hopes and dreams applied to all areas of school, though, helped me out and I ended up drawing a very tiny display of our school to put up in the room.  

Now, I need you to know that our laminator has been on the fritz and my quote "Never give UP on your dreams" has yet to be added to the display, but I've been DYING to share it with you.  So, here it is.  Drum roll please...........................................................................................................

I hope and dream that you've been inspired!  Thanks for stopping in!

Happy Dreaming,
Katie

FREEBIES on Teachers Pay Teachers

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Happy Monday!  :)

I have to start off by stating that this Monday was FAR better than last Monday.  Last week someone stole my "teacher bag" which also had some very important documents in it and it was a headache notifying all of the necessary agencies.  I mean, who takes a teacher bag full of student work, a wedding planning binder and a children's book?!?!  Needless to say the bag has not turned up. :(

In order to celebrate this Monday being much better than last week, I thought I'd share some work that I put on Teachers Pay Teachers last week.  At my school we implement Project-Based Learning and my second graders are in the middle of doing a life cycles project.  We launched the project by taking a visit to the Durham Museum of Life and Science to visit their Butterfly Conservatory.  Talk about neat!  We saw lots of butterflies, did an entire workshop on butterfly life cycles and had the chance to see some butterfly eggs.  Check out the pictures below from our trip inside the butterfly conservatory.

Now that we've launched our project we are off and away with working on learning about life cycles.  Our main focus is butterflies, while envisioning that our final product will be an entire Life Cycles Museum that we put together as a class.  They came back with some GREAT ideas after our visit to the museum and noticed details that I had glanced over that would be wonderful additions to our final product, which will unveil itself sometime in October.

Seeing as we're focused on butterflies and the fact that they are due to arrive in our room any day now, I've put together a free download on Teachers Pay Teachers that is a life cycle observation journal.  We spent today talking about how to make good observations, so we're ready to use our journals when the caterpillars arrive. There are two journal pages, a black and white cover page and a color cover page, which is shown below!

Also, to keep your week a bit more organized, I have a quick download for those of you who like to stay on top of your daily "To-Do" items.  To download you can click here or you can click on the picture.

Have a Joyful Week!
Katie