My Favoite Things 2014 Blog Hop

I am so excited to be participating in this blog hop, with over 60 teacher-authors participating in this, it is sure to be a HUGE hit!  Why hop from blog to blog?  Each teacher in this blog hop are here to tell you a few of their favorite things in regards to restaurants, stores, beauty products, holiday traditions, and lots more!  Did I mention that each teacher author has donated one of their favorite things in a HUGE giveaway featured at the end of this blog?  Well guess what? They are!  There are tons and tons of great prizes and 7 lucky winners will win on December 12th.  That gives you a whole week to check this out and enter and even if you don’t win you are sure to win BIG with the freebies and discounts you will find during this hop.

1st Favorite Thing: Hallmark's Itty Bitty's

 I found something today at Hallmark that I believe is going to make a great holiday tradition with my 3 year old daughter.  Have you ever heard or seen of Hallmark's Itty Bitty line?   Look at these adorable stuffies!

These mini stuffed people (about the size of two inches) are just too cute!  Hallmark started making the princesses about a year ago and have really grown the collection.  They now have over 40 different Disney and other characters that you can buy at 6.95 a piece.

They then took that idea one step further this year and made these Christmas hooks that you can put around the itty bitty's necks so you can hang them on a Christmas tree like an ornament!  I don't know about you, but I LOVED this idea!  My daughter has already broken 2 of my ceramic ornaments and the idea that she can take these on and off the tree and play with them makes this a great find for kids! I plan to put several of these in my daughter's stocking a year and continue doing this for years to come.  What a fun tree that will make!

 

2nd Favorite Thing: Advent Calendars

I can honestly say I love a good advent calendar, especially the ones filled with chocolate. Yummy!  However having a 3 year old I have a difficult time wanting to give her chocolate everyday and getting her all hyped up.  Trust me, one small piece of chocolate and she's running around the house like mad!  Nobody wants that!  So I have been looking for an alternative for awhile now and found this little gem.

 

I love this advent calendar because it not only looks good as a holiday decoration but it allows me to find little goodies throughout the year to put inside each door. 

I looked for little things that were less than $2.00 each (more along the dollar line) as I didn't want this to be an extremely costly tradition.  Some things I found were old fashioned earrings (great for dress-up) chocolate coins, a sucker, candy, jingle bell necklace, holiday socks, wind up toys, ornaments, etc.  We are on day 7 now and my daughter is loving this advent calendar.  The first day she didn't understand the idea of opening one door a day and got upset, but day two she understood and now looks forward to a "Santa Present" as we call it each day.  I just love seeing her face light up when we talk about Santa!

3rd Favorite Thing: Cut and Paste Projects

When it comes to teaching, we all know I love a good cut and paste project!  They are great for fine motor skills and kids just love them!  So be sure to download my Gingerbread Freebie as it's my favorite cut and paste this holiday season! 

Gingerbread Man Cut and Paste Freebie

4th Favorite Thing: Mixbook

 My mom just loves scrapbooking and goes on weekend retreats probably 3 times a year to spend time relaxing and working on pages.  While I absolutely love what she creates for some reason I have never got into the world of scrapbooking (which is ironic because I love being crafty!).  I did however get into the world of digital scrapbooking! Lots of fun and a lot less expensive.  I tried several different programs and sites before finding Mixbook.  I absolutely fell in love with this website and the way it allowed me to scrapbook.  They have so many adorable custom templates that you can play around with and adjust to your liking.  You can even make one from scratch and use their different color pages, stickers, borders, etc.  It's addicting and super fun!  Here are some of the pages I made using this website.

 

What do you guys think?  I am pretty proud of how these pages turned out, they give you a little insight to my life.  I think the layouts are fun and I love that I have a nice hard cover book that I can put out on my coffee table to share with guests from time to time.  You can also make calendars and cards from this website as well.  How would you guys like to win a $25 giftcard to Mixbook? Well you can, by entering the giveaway at the end of this post!  My prize is featured in package #4 so be sure to enter!

5th Favorite Thing: A Sale!

No blog hop would be complete without a discount on some great products!  Like the other teacher-authors in this blog hop I have discounted several items 50% off from 12/7-12/14.  That's right I said 50% OFF!  You can see all the items that are 50% off by entering #myfavoritethings2014 in the search box on the teachers pay teachers homepage.  You can also find just my items here: #myfavoritethings2014

  And please keep checking back this week (to my store ofcourse!) as you never know when I might change my 50% off items to other items :)

 

A note from all the bloggers:

Because we value our followers and wanted to treat you to our favorite things Oprah style, we have put together the best giveaway of the season! My bloggy friends and I welcome you to the best, biggest, most cheerful event of the season:

 

 

7 winners for 7 prize packs!

 

 

 

Come and enter the giveaway and check out my bloggy friends' favorite things:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up