In the Mail

Melissa and Nedra, your earrings are in the mail!!

What's on Your "To Do" List?

Do you all have a "to do" list that's a mile long? I certainly do, and blogging is down towards the bottom of the list, so this is a quick post. Normally I blog over the weekend and set several things up to auto post during the week. But school has been crazy and I have choir concerts at church every night this weekend and I have packages I have to get ready to get into the mail. So you may not hear much from me for a bit.

At school I have been hosting a project where students from 17 schools around the US and Canada are sharing pictures of their holiday traditions using Smilebox slideshows. Here's a link to the project if you are interested in seeing a bit of what has been occupying my time. Smilebox is a awesome free and easy tool - a great way to share holiday greetings and pictures. Here is one of the projects from our school if you'd like to take a look:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Hope you have a productive weekend! More later when I can catch my breath!

Wintery Clipboards in Black and White

I've updated my clipboard display for the holidays! I took some of the wintery pictures that I took last year and used iPhoto to change them to black and white. Then I printed them using iPhoto08 with mats on glossy paper. (Here is a tutorial on how to print pictures in iPhoto with mats.) I **LOVE** printing the photos with the mats - so easy and they make any picture look so professional. I've borrow ideas for using photography decorating from the Pottery Barn catalogs that I scour for cute decorating ideas.



I clipped them up with some white berries. I always stock up on these berries at JoAnn fabrics when they go on sale and I use them on everything. They are great to tuck into greenery or the bows on packages - an easy way to make anything look festive!

Window Sparkle

Over the summer I picked up this old window at a garage sale. It's been collecting dust while I waited for some inspiration for how to use it. I was playing around with using it as a display backdrop on a shelf when I remembered these cute Martha Stewart mirror snowflake ornaments that I bought at Kmart a few years ago in the after Christmas sales. (You'll probably notice that all my decorations are bought in the sales after Christmas!)

I used a hot glue gun to attach them. (Later on I decided that I should have used tacks, too late now.) I think it makes a cute little backdrop for some of my other Christmas accessories.

The Drum Roll, Please!

Well, I promised a little drawing this afternoon for the earrings for my Bloggerversary Giveaway. Thanks for all of your comments - I often see regular views from certain locations and I finally discovered who all you were! I printed out all of your nice comments, folded them neatly, and put them in a basket.


And then reached in.


The winner of the pearl earrings is Melissa, my missionary friend from Austria, who blogs at this website. Melissa and I used to teach together and is a (fairly) new mom!


And the winner of the quartz earrings is Nedra, a talented educator that I met on plurk.com. We often "chat" about ideas and issues related to using technology in the classroom. I just discovered when I went to her teaching blog that it was her bloggerverary yesterday! So this is a fitting present for her.

Ladies, I will be in touch to get your addresses (or you may email the info to me). This was so much fun I may have to do it again!

Vintage Christmas Card Tree

There was one thing that was good about not going home for Thanksgiving - I ended up getting my Christmas decorating done early! I have a few new items that I have added to the decor this year that I will be showing off over the next few days.


I picked this cool wire Christmas tree card holder at Pier One for half off last year after the holidays. I am using it to display some of my vintage Christmas cards.



Don't forget to leave a comment at my Bloggerversary post if you want to be entered to win the earrings that I am giving away. I will be making the drawing on Sunday afternoon!

Bloggerversary Giveaway

Well, it was one year ago I decided that I wanted to experiment with blogging. Instead of doing something that directly related to my job as a educator, I chose to focus on my life away from school. I love reading pretty creative blogs, and I like doing creative projects, and taking artistic pictures, and thus "Clever Karen" was born. I didn't know if I would run out of projects to share, but 263 (!) posts later, I still am finding stuff to show to you. And it has motivated to keep using the gift of creativity with which God has blessed me. Thank you to all who have read my ramblings and have let me know that they have enjoyed having this little peak into my creative life.


In honor of my "Bloggerversary" I am going to do a little gift giveaway. I have 2 pairs of earrings that I made just for a couple of my lucky readers! One of them is quartz squares with bronze colored beads (above) and the other is fresh water pearls with tiny crystals (below).

If you are interested in having one of the pairs of earrings, just leave one little bitty comment. Yes, I know some of my friends read this, but never comment, so hopefully this will motivate you to be brave and learn to comment! Pardon the teacher in me coming out, but this is all you have to do to comment:

Scroll down to the bottom of this post where it says "comments." (There will be a number in front of word "comments.") Click on the word "comments." Another screen will open.

Type your comment in the big box on the new page. (Not the box on the left - that is just a screen shot of what will be on the new page.)

Then click on the dot next to Name/URL.
Type your name in the box by Name. First name is fine.
You don't have to put anything by URL (unless you have a website that you want me to know about).

Then click "Publish Your Comment."
The comment will be sent to me to approve. It won't appear unless I say it is ok!


On Sunday afternoon I'll do a little drawing of the names of everyone who commented and announce two winners. I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone who is lurking and from those new friends I have made who regularly leave comments! Good luck!