so, i've been doing all these projects...

It's Summer. 

I have my moments where I want to be super-productive, and I have these other moments where I want to be super-lazy.  They don't exactly balance each other out...but, hey - it's Summer. I'm allowed to ignore my work.

Anyways, I've been doing all these projects that I found on...yes, pinterest. I have a HUGE LONG LIST of things that I want to do in order to "update" my classroom for this school year.  I want it to run more efficiently, allow for my students to be more productive, and prevent myself from saying things repeatedly, and prevent myself from saying things repeatedly:) - i kid..

As part of my efforts to allow things to run more efficiently, I took THIS idea and ran with it.  This past school year being my first year, I had already spent SO much money (read that as more than I should have spent) stocking my classroom with supplies and other decorative items (i.e. border...).  

Because of this need to minimize the amount of money spent, I tweaked the M-F bins, and, instead, I used hanging file folders in my Teacher File Cabinet.  While this was nice, I found myself not using it as much, and generally saw it as a waste of space/materials. I dislike..I mean, I truly DISLIKE useless items in my classroom. If it doesn't serve a purpose, I don't want it in there. I realized that the reason I wasn't using it was because my Teacher File Cabinet was back behind my desk - a place I rarely ever go to when I'm teaching.  I prefer to stay in the middle of the classroom, able to monitor my students and answer their questions easily. Having to go back to my desk area to grab materials was just lost time every day...multiple times a day.

So, in an effort to stay organized, but continue to be something I like to look at AND use, I bought 2 of these black plastic drawers from Wal-Mart:

And then, I dug in to my stash of scrapbook paper....and I found a style I really liked - stripes with some pretty embellishments.

I measured the drawers and cut out strips of the paper - they ended up being 24 cm x 6 cm.

I printed out the days of the week (M-F) and "other" for the miscellaneous papers that like to accumulate on my desk. The font used was called "Marker Felt."

After the days of the week were cut out, I centered them on the strips and glued them in the middle. Something to note: glue them closer to the bottom of the strip so that you can clearly see the words underneath the drawer handle.

After the glue dried, it was off to the laminating machine, and then they got taped in to place in the drawers themselves.

 You like?

I decided to do create my own twist on these drawers, and I used the same paper for M-F, but I found a similar print for my "other" drawer.  Both stripes, just different colors.  

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the result.  This project definitely took a lot of time, but I know it will be so worth it!  

wooooooo-hooooo,

the craft rookie