For the past two weeks, I've been wondering who, what, where, when about my 500th dehoarded item!
photo via Hoarder Rehab, more of these available here
who was going to order it? which item it was it going to be? which shop was it going to be from? when would it finally happen? would I get a story?....Ends up it's 500 stickers and two more lots of my teacher destash stickers with a story!
I didn't realize it until this morning when I was going over my dehoard tally because over the weekend I was too busy with another project and lost track of time. Anyways, that's another story.....back to this one...
And my 500th dehoard item went to my BFF in Texas, HeyAlleyCat! How coincidental is that? This morning, I think my heart might have skipped a beat or two just from the amazement of it all. How does something even culminate into a feat this big?
One small baby step after another will take me on a thousand mile journey! Anyways, while it boggles my mind, let me return to this story...
You might remember her stories from October about More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and how her husband built a tree house with a slide for the big event story telling night for Halloween, update with several classic photos scared kids from reading out loud from that Scary Story book, here and her original story, here with photos of the tree house in it's early stages.
This time Ali wanted stickers to set up some kind of reward system for her two grand children to spend less time playing computer games. And remembered this posting on how another Etsy buyers was going to use them for her chore chart. She ordered them because they were going to help motivate her to clean! Read here story and see which stickers she's using, here!
I piggy backed on her idea too! but I use the 500 stickers to document how much time I spend dehoarding in the second room or music art room daily and weekly. Every 15 minutes I spend dehoarding in there I place a sticker on my calendar planner. I'll take a picture this weekend.
----Insert photo of my weekly planner here---- I will admit there hasn't been much dehoarding going on in there, since I've been catching up on over 20-30 years of insomnia and have been sleeping night and day (I barely woke up to write this posting this afternoon!) and I've started a new project that is taking me a whole lot more time than I originally planned, so good thing I started three weeks ahead! More about that later...
photo via Hoarder Rehab, another favorite student sticker, "Hooray for Me" badge stickers available here
So here is the other lot of stickers HeyAlleyCat ordered, which may seem like overkill with reward stickers, but my students would get bored with using the same stickers over and over, so having different ones to use later when motivation wanes seems to actually work!
That's one thing that is nice about the 500 sticker sheet pack, it has 20 different stickers before they repeat the same design and motivational words, so that's a months worth of week days of a different sticker daily! That's enough time to modify a behavior for the sticker serious!
My students loved the 500 sheet sticker page and each one got at least one page to use to their heart's desires for playing school at home, reward systems for themselves and siblings at home and to decorate and give themselves journal rewards or writer starter topics!
photo via Hoarder Rehab, more of these available here!
Ali didn't mention how she was going to use these, but for me as a teacher these were a MUST HAVE in a classroom of 20-30 students! No more accusations, suspicions, mix ups or arguments over whose pencil was whose lost or stolen, etc. What a time saver, not to mention headache saver!
These are a huge classroom helper accessory! Keeps everyone organized and personalized! Plus did I mention how good it looks and sounds for a teacher to look up from her desk seeing all 20-30 pencil flags waving in silence during journal writing time? Those were the days of five minutes of precious peace for any teacher!
Also these could be used as cupcake toppers for an animal themed birthday party to personalize and organize cupcakes, especially to include other eaters with certain types of allergies, like vegan, sugar free, gluten free and/or dairy free with these as cupcake toppers or personalize with special guest names or special greetings, wishes and what not!
Also to personalize party straws, utensils, and/or appetizer toothpicks!
photo via Hoarder Rehab, other stickers like these available here
Saying Goodbye: Letting go of my 500th items is a joy! and even more joyous since it went to my BFF in Texas! I look forward to hear how she uses them and how it helps her boys to spend less time playing computer games. Last I heard she was making some kind of chore chart poster board reward system.
I'm running out of time here, so if anyone "out there" wants some teacher tested reward systems that work, just let me know in comments or emails.
What I Learned:
1. I'll be celebrating all weekend with Mr Oz since hitting the 500 mark milestone of less hoard! It feels just stupendous and I'm still pinching myself in disbelief that I really have come so far! And of course, a million thousand thanks to Mr Oz making it all possible for me by setting up my shops, teaching and showing me how to use a computer more efficiently and how to navigate on the this site, Etsy site and other sites!
2. A BIG thanks to another Allee, Allee Willis and her Museum of Kitsch and Windup Kitty who got me started on this blog journey! Read the story of how it all started, here!
3. I've found a craft project that is fun and interesting and has linked me back into teacher mode. Although extremely time consuming, it's so fun that I lose track of hours of time and do not think about shopping or even window shopping! Although some shopping was mandatory!
I'm making an interactive Advent Calendar for some little ones I know which I found in the Whole Foods newsletter and is affiliated with ETsy! Called DIY Yourself Decorating with Etsy! I call it "The Forest of Advent", but they call theirs, "Geometric Tree Advent Calendar" See the project with directions here.
As a teacher, I am not a big fan of candy, so I replaced all the candy in their Advent Calender version and added more interactive activities, like a Christmas wish list as a pre writing to writing Santa a letter to Thank you letters for after Christmas. I also made one of the trees into a bank, so they can think of others less fortunate add some coins or bills to it daily too and later decide on a donation or charity.
Yes, I kinda went into teacher mode overload! More about it tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how much sleep I'll be needing day and night!
What rewards or penalties did you experience through your school years? Which ones worked or made things worse? I don't remember my teachers using either, except in special individual cases.
Other ponderings: I wonder if dehoarding 500 items in a way that works for me has helped me with ridding my insomnia?
Thank you Ali of HeyAlleyCat for your fun and funny support and another order! Thank you for helping me out in so many different ways! Get some Christmas shopping done early and check out her shop, HeyAlleyCat here! She has my favorite buri squirrel handmade woodland scene here and she's clearing out her 70s home decor here!
Thank you Etsy for helping me reach further than my wildest dreams and get half past my hoard by helping me send it out into the world with new lives and better homes! It seems shocking, exciting and daunting to think I may have 500 items down and 500 more to go, but I never thought I'd ever get this far, so thank you for everything!
However I certainly know it's possible now and hope has grown deep in my heart of a lot more possibilities out there for me besides living with roomfuls of hoard following me around all my life!
Thank you US, China, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Malaysia and any other countries I missed due to catching up on 20 years of insomnia by sleeping day and night for the past week or so and taking part in my Hoarder Rehab and The Destiny of Things!
Click on the shop names to visit my hoard listed daily: HoarderRehab, The Destiny of Things and VintageToGoEtsy and now JunkDrawerLoveEtsy! There are about 99 items listed on JunkDrawerLoveEtsy and will be listing 1-3 new things there daily and 1-2 items at the other shops!
Thanks for looking! Maybe you'll find something to take home and share your story too!
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