Decorated Clothespins

Kids work super hard to produce their best work. Why hang it up with just some plain clothespins? 

I use clothespins to hang up work and to keep track of classroom jobs/book nook spots. Every time I go to move them, I appreciate them more than ever now that they are decorated and fun-looking.  :-)

Jungle Theme Clothespins

You will need:

Bag of Clothespins (Walmart sells huge bag for $2, paint or spraypaint, medium paintbrush, thin paintbrush)

Paint the clothespins with a color of your choice. Bright colors really make student work pop out. You can keep just the solid base color or you can have some fun and put some polka dots, patterns, glitter, or any other designs to make your clothespins more exciting!

Happy Clothespinning!

Free Storage For Your Books/Supplies

The bell went diiiiinggg in my mind when I was in a local store nearby in the school aisle. I saw a bunch of those holders that stores use to put folders, books and any other school supplies in.... EMPTY!!

I asked management if I could take some and they said absolutely! I didn't pay a dime and I walked out with a cart full of storage for my classroom! Places like Kmart, Walmart and Target are probably your best bet!

I took them into my classroom and used one small piece of decorated duct tape around the box to label each storage unit. I use them in my classroom for both book and folder holders.

Teacher on a budget = winning.

Make Your Own Storage Seats

So I saw them all over Pinterest and HAD to finally do them myself!!

Choose a fun fabric!
My classroom is a Jungle Theme so I went with some animal print!

These seats are awesome for storage and are really convenient for kidney tables/long work tables since you can push them in or move them around easily.

You will need:

A few yards of material, plastic file crates (Walmart/Target sells them for $4 each), Pillow or Sponge, Flat piece of wood for each crate, heavy duty stapler, scissors


Step 1:  Cut your flat piece of durable flat wood to fit the inside corners of the crate. This needs to fit perfectly so that the wood can rest easy on the crate.

Step 2: Take a piece of long sponge/small cushion and place it on top of the wood. Take the material and cover the wood and sponge. Turn the entire thing around and staple the bottom to secure the cushion/sponge inside.

**Make sure you leave enough material before you cut it to staple it to the wood.

Step 3: After stapling all around the bottom of the cushion, turn the seat around and securely fit it into the crate. You can take a piece of material and attach it to the side of the wood so that you can make a flap to lift up the seat easily, or you can just lift it up through the hole of the crate.


Material is super expensive so if you have any extra material, make a pillow or two!

How fun are these!

Do-It-Yourself Paper Holders

Paper holders can be very expensive for the classroom. Do-it-yourself paper holders will cost you about $4.00 for one!

You will need:

For one holder:  4 Priority shipping boxes from the post office, decorated duct tape, glue, scissors


The best part about this project is that the priority shipping boxes are free! Go to your local post office and pick up a few boxes to create this inexpensive organizational tool.

First you need to put each shipping box together. Since the flaps will hang out, cut them off to look as smooth as you can. Once you have your shipping boxes assembled, stack each box, gluing each to the other, one by one. Do this until all boxes are connected.

Here comes the fun part! Take a roll of decorated duct tape and start from the back side. I didn't bother doing the back of the boxes since they will be facing the wall in my classroom. Tape the box slowly, keeping it nice and neat as you wrap around the boxes.

For the insides of the box, I cut slits to allow the inside of the box to have a little decoration too.

Happy paper storing!