Organising my TPT graphics collection

Now that I have been working heavily on my Teachers Pay Teacher store, I had begun to encounter some issues with the way I have been saving my clipart, backgrounds, fonts and borders. It is very easy to become a horder of beautiful digital works both free and paid and I was being very lax in how I filed my downloads.

I decided early on that just putting them in one folder to scroll up and down would be a good idea for easy access. Turns out that was a very bad idea. Not only did I have no idea who owned the work I downloaded, I didn't know who to reference and I didn't know if I had paid for the download or not. All a copyright nightmare. Realising this, I switched to downloading files and keeping them in their original folder with the same name provided by the artist. This however was also confusing as the names meant something to the designer but not me.

So now I think I have finally got it sorted and it's helping me in more ways than one.

As you can see I have renamed each of the folders to first have the title of the designer and then the set included within. This has been great because I am fast becoming familiar with the names of the artists remembering who has my favourite styles. They become my first port of call to return to for new work.
This has made referencing a breeeze also as I recognise the style and go straight back to the folder to find the artist's button for reference.
I do the same with my font files, however I have been using google docs to jot down ideas for my products and have a list of font licences I have purchased there, I'll never forget which fonts I am permitted to use this way.
It's a small piece of organisation, but with two small children it is important to keep on top of the small things that save a few minutes each day.
I hope this will be of help to other teacher authors.

Teacher Author Profit/Loss Sheet - Reaching a new milestone.

I've happily been spending a bit of money on clipart, backgrounds and a new blog design of late and as many Teacher authors will know, it's easy to get carried away. I know there are expenses to be outlaid in any new business and those on TpT dwarf other small business - a font vs a coffee machine! So as I am a relative newcomer to TpT on a serious way I wanted to know when I hit the milestone of actually having my shop in the black.
So over the last few days I have created a Teacher Author Profit/Loss Sheet to calculate the income and outgoings of my TpT store.
Luckily for those that follow me on TpT they'll be able to grab it free first at Teacher Author Profit/Loss Sheet.

The worksheet allows users to easily repopulate the data with new stats downloaded from their My Product Stats page. I have included columns to add various expenses aside from those listed above such as TpT membership fees, tax and net and gross income. 

The sheet doesn't go so far as to aportion internet usage, computer wear and hours spent, but it's a good start.

It's important to be organised when running a small business with small children at home so I'll be posting some of the other simple organisational things I have been doing as my store develops.

Back on board.

I have decided to come back to my blog after quite a while away from it beign busy having another child. My delicious daughter is now a year old and I am so fortunate to be at home caring for her rather than having her in care.

We share two lovely quiet week days each week together and three energetic creative days with her three year old brother home also.
He is becoming so interested in the world and I am enjoying introducing Science to him in little snippets. He asks wonderful questions and as a result of him asking me why plants grow we have been growing some bean seeds in a clear soda bottle.
We have been documenting the changes we see in the free version of the Educreations app and discussing changes we see each day.
Funnily enough I didn't notice that before the bean seeds germinate they grow bigger and softer from absorbing the water into the seeds.

Mr Three has loved seeing how much change there is under the soil before the seedlings appear.


 We make our daily observations and he lets me know what he thinks will happen next. At three and a half he really is excited to see the changes taking place.
Today we were amazed to see that our little bean plant leaves had turned back towards the window within 2 hours of being rotated away from the sun.

We also grew some bean seeds in cotton wool and kept them on the window sill just to see what would happen. A little bit of slow germination and then a fizzle. They did nothing. This was enough to cement it for Mr Three that the seeds in the cotton wool did not survive because they did not have food, just water, sun and air.

This has made me think about a product I have been working on, a quiz for Science. In the making of this quiz I have been looking at each of the standards in the American curriculum. One of the fifth grade standards states that "...plant matter comes mostly from air and water, not from soil." "Students should understand that plants require air and water to grow only. That they are not dependent on soil or sun".
This to me is alien to both what I have seen through planting seeds and read. When we teach the basic needs of all living things, students learn that plants need air, water, food and space to grow. Specifically though too plants take in carbon monoxide so this further confuses me. I will have to further investigate what the standards are meant to convey.