So for the last 8 years, my classroom has been ugly.  Sure, I have posters on the wall and stuff on the bulletin board, but it's an older building with old furniture.  It's not all in great shape, but we make do with what we have.  I'm also messy.  I tend to have stacks of papers on every surface (but I know what's in each stack, haha), and I have a habit of starting something, getting interrupted, and then not finishing it and leaving the materials out.   

This year, one of my goals is to beautify my room and make it a calm, friendly, organized place.  In other words, I want to Pinterest the heck out of it.

I'm a bit of a cheapskate sometimes, so I'm going to try to work with supplies I've already got or things that can be bought for little to nothing.  The dollar store is my friend.  

In my district, teachers go back to school on August 3rd this year.  I'm trying to get a jump on getting my room set up before that, even though the A/C system is under construction right now, and it was a balmy 87 degrees in my room today.  

I didn't get to take pictures of all the stuff I did today because my phone died, but here are some things I worked on today and some recommendations.

1.  Contact paper is boss.

Look at this crappy old desk.  I don't know if this was at some point in time a student desk, but I really hope it wasn't the teacher's desk.  I need more room to maneuver than that.  

BEFORE

Fortunately, Dollar Tree has some bangin' patterns in contact paper for the smol price of $1 a roll.  The width of the contact paper was short just a little on each side, and the edges of the desk are kinda weird and rounded, so I decided to just go with it.  I thought trying to line up the patterns would be a pain in the hind, and it would be too hard to get all the bubbles out.  

I think it turned out pretty well and made it look a little less like a leftover from the first year the school opened.  It has the little pull out (for when your work is really serious), and I covered over the graffiti.  

I hope Amanda -N- Eric M really are 4EVER,
but I don't want to look at it. #sorrynotsorry

Ahhhh, that's better.

2.  Duct Tape is a game changer.

I used to work at a different school, and when I transferred, they gave me a framed photo of the building.  Not exactly something I want to put out on display.  Today I opened it up, tossed the photo (come on it was like a 4 cent print from CVS), and repurposed the frame. 

Duck Tape now has patterned tape that isn't as massive as it usually is, and it was just the perfect size to add some pizzazz to this plain black frame.  And it's easy.  You don't have to be artistic to slap some tape on something. I really love bright colors, especially when they are together like these zig zags.  You're going to see this stuff again in future posts!

The paper on the inside of the frame came out of one of those 12x12 books you get at AC Moore or Michael's for scrapbooking.  The arrow sticker is from Dollar Tree -- it came in a pack of 12 or so.    

I'm feelin' pretty fancy and this makes my supply table pretty legit.  I've always had supplies around for the kiddos, but they're usually in this drawer or that box or over there on the shelf.  This is gonna make it centralized.  

3.  Bullet Journal.

This is the journal/planner/calendar I've always dreamed of.  It sells for $8.99 on Amazon, and it's Prime so that's cool.  

If your mind works at all like mine, you know how frustrating it can be to try to fit your thoughts, schedule, lists, etc into teensy boxes on a pre-printed agenda book. And sometimes they are set up so that you've got notes in one part and a calendar somewhere else and then your lists are in another spot altogether. You have to flip all over creation to try to figure out what's going on. The beauty of this journal is the flexibility. YOU make the book fit the stuff instead of the stuff having to conform to the book.

And you get to doodle.

Sure, you could do the same with a pad of graph paper, but graph paper doesn't give you the template suggestions and doodle ideas that this book does.  I'm looking forward to seeing all the ways I can make this work for me when school starts.  

4. Glue Dots are the sticky booger you didn't know you needed.

Way better than tape, and more convenient than hot glue.
You can find these at Dollar Tree, 36 for a $1.

They are super sticky, and flexible.  You can stretch them to fit whatever you need to stick.  

Every year, I have to redo the turn in trays because planning periods change, schedules change, etc.  This year, I used some half size colored index cards, my new fave Duck Tape, and some paper punches from Stampin' Up.  The Glue Dots are great for this because they will stay on and I can make teeny tiny papers stick to the narrow plastic bits by stretching them out.

  Stampin' Up is one of those sold-by-moms-at-parties businesses.  I got pretty interested in it a few years ago and bought a ton of stamps, paper punches, ink, embossing powder, and so on and so forth.  I liked to make greeting cards since, as a single childless woman, I don't really need a scrapbook of myself or my dog.  The trouble is that stuff is pretty time consuming and requires some storage space.  I've decided I'll get more use out of these whatnots by bringing them to school.  We'll see what happens.

Basically, decorating your classroom does not have to be expensive or complicated.  It should be functional or it's not worth messing with it.  If you don't have time to put contact paper or fancy duct tape on stuff, then don't -- what you teach and how you teach it is more important.