My Story

Where in the world have I been?? I haven’t blogged in over a year! The truth is.. life happened!! Last summer I was up to my ears in grad school work, living with family while building our dream home, and trying to prepare for a new school year by working on Math Assessments for my parish. As soon as school began in August I was treading water to keep up with everything along with my TPT store.

December 2015- I graduated with my Masters in Educational Leadership in Technology! By far, the proudest moment of my life! During my undergrad graduation, I did not find myself emotional. Likely because I knew I wanted more and that I could do more. My program was completely perfect for me and where I want to go with my career. It is a completely online Master’s program from a fully accredited university where I attended my undergrad. Contact me if you are interested in this year and a half program! Amazing!

Part of my requirements to graduate was to present at our state’s technology conference… LACUE (Louisiana Association Computer Using Educators). HERE is where I found my love to present and share my story of TPT! My presentation was called “Help me I’m poor: Tips and Tricks to get you started on TPT!” So many people complimented me on my presentation even after I assured them I was just a tiny fish in this HUGE TPT ocean!
What better way to come back to my blog after over a year than to share my TPT journey!

MY TPT STORY!

While student teaching in the Fall of 2011 I stumble across Teachers Pay Teachers from Pinterest. Student teaching is when you begin to daydream about your future classroom and pin all of the things that you will never have time for. I kept being redirected to this site Teachers Pay Teachers in almost everything I pinned. I decided to check it out. Like most newbies, I downloaded everything that was free. OH MY GOODNESS break out the portable hard drive! I thought this is amazing! SO many free things! For me! Then I began to dive deeper into “hmm.. if I bought this, maybe someone could buy my things.” So I uploaded a few things that I made while student teaching in hopes of helping it take off. One of those products is one of my best sellers still today! My Map Skills Pack!

Of course it was NOT that pretty at the time. People bought it here and there but nothing crazy. I think I earned about $6 in sales for the year of 2011 but hey who doesn’t need 6 bucks!

Fast forward to June 2013… I am prepping for my upcoming wedding, bachelorette party, and honeymoon craziness! I knew that I needed to create all of the things for my upcoming school year ASAP so I could enjoy all of the wedding activities. THIS is when my Chevron Classroom Newsletter was born! TA DAHHHHHH!! It was strictly made for the use of my classroom that coming school year. NEVER ever ever ever in a million years did I think so many people would fall in love with it. Anyways…. made it, posted it, left for my honeymoon cruise.

While we were on our cruise I periodically check emails to let the parentals know that we were not left in a foreign country. When I logged in for the first time and saw over 100 emails from Teachers Pay Teachers that says “product sold” I lost it! I called my husband over and showed him. His first words… “We may be on to something here…” Yeah, you caught that “WE” thing? Barely married a few weeks and he is already wanting money! haha JUST JOKING! But yes, so many people bought and pinned my newsletter I could not believe it. Since then my store has taken off. I have created NUMEROUS themes and newsletters for all types of uses in the education field but this newsletter still remains my best seller.

UNTIL…. February of 2015. One of my AMAZING fellow teacher friends Nicole Otting asked me to make her a “Meet the Teacher” Newsletter that she could hand out at the beginning of the school year to introduce herself to her students. SURE! Sounds like fun! I made it, sent it to her, she loved it, and I posted it. OH MY GOODNESS, Nicole I owe you dinner times like a million because this Newsletter has CHANGED MY LIFE! I am not kidding you! So many people love love this newsletter and still purchase it daily! It is completely editable and of course I have multiple themes to go along with everyone’s different classroom styles. But when I say it changed my life… I am not kidding. Thanks for the money I earned from the sales of this newsletter (and my other products), I was able to purchase new appliances for our new home along with bedroom furniture and a couch we love all cash with my earnings. I am not sure how quickly we would have been able to purchase all of these things without my earnings. Don’t get me wrong, it does take work. BUT I enjoy making and creating for people. 99% of the time that I get email requests from anyone, I create it for them. I truly get joy out of making all of these products and that fact that I get paid for it is simply an added bonus. I love TPT because it helps us all work smarter instead of harder. Something that takes me literally 30 minutes to make might take you 4 hours to make… and that’s okay. I love that I can save teachers time by selling them these products and allowing them to spend more time with their family or getting other things done. Isn’t that the purpose of this fantastic website!?

Of course, since creating this Meet the Principal, Counselor, Librarian, Director, etc. has been made!

Did I mention somewhere in there I was announced as Teacher of the Year!? 🙂

Fast forward February 2016 we were FINALLY able to move into our beautiful home! (post with pics to follow). I was able to finish the school year at my current school of W.S. Lafargue Elementary in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

BUT, beginning of February…. a huge bomb was dropped on us Elementary teachers in Thibodaux. Our parish decided to reconfigure the Elementary schools by combining the 3 elementary schools. All three Elementary schools each held Pre-k through 5th but that was all going to change. One school will house Prek-1st grade, my current school will now house 2nd and 3rd, and another school will now house 4th and 5th. I was faced with the choice of leaving my first and only school I’ve ever worked with along with the only administration I have ever worked for OR leave my absolute favorite grade level that I have taught for 4 years.
In the end, I decided to pack my things and move to the school that will now house 4th and 5th grade. I believe I made the right choice for me. The hall I am moving into is under renovations so I cannot get in there yet, but you can believe there will be some BEFORE/AFTER pictures because this room will be a total overhaul since there is literally NOTHING in there right now. All of my things are safely placed in the gym (I hope!)

Anyways,

I will be back soon to blog more about our new house, our AMAZING SPECTACULAR FANTASTIC trip to New York from November, and to share new products with you!

For now, back to Netflix, Hulu, and more on my couch!
Happy Summer folks!

Meet Kristi

Hey friend! I’m Kristi! A 5th grade teacher, wife, and mom from South Louisiana. I help teachers improve their planning and data documentation by utilizing digital planners!