Monday Made It - A Story of Success and Failure

If you happen to "like" Mrs. D's Corner on Facebook, you'll *hopefully* have seen that I was having some major Flash Freebies last week. I designed a Tribal Herringbone theme that I absolutely have fallen in love with and have decided to use as my classroom theme for the upcoming school year. Having made that major teacher-life decision so early on, I got a jump start on classroom decor and a few binders to use (those were the Flash Freebies)!

Jeffrey (my husband) and I haven't yet moved into our new house (*10 days... I can now count the days on two hands! YIPPEEE!!), so about twice a week I try to get out of this hotel room for a few hours. Last week, Target and Michaels were on the list. It's kind of crazy how I can go into a store like either one of those for one thing (yep, only 1) and come out with 4 Monday Made It ideas. Yep 4.

It all started out on Instagram. I wish I could tell you which amazing teacher it is that gave me the idea, but I follow so many of you that it's hard to remember! One of you posted a picture of your pristine and clean classroom and I noticed you had these 12" x 12" pieces of colored paper on your wall. It gave me this brilliant idea to run to Michaels and grab some scrapbook paper to make one for my room. I chose my colors and decided that I'm going to use these 9 pieces of paper in a 3x3 format on the wall to display another idea I have for the first week of school. Well, since I ended up grabbing 2 different shades of purple... I haven't quite finished that Monday Made It idea yet. Still processing...

Lucky for me (and you!), I just couldn't say no and had 3 more projects to tackle. So do you want the good news or the bad news first?!

Let's start with my Monday Made it failure :( It all started with those circle stickers. They match my tribal theme perfectly, so I picked them off the shelf with pride. I was so excited I couldn't stand it. I knew exactly what to do with them: make colorful tacks out of them! Above is the picture before the mess occurred.

You can see how perfect the size of the larger stickers is compared to the tacks I bought. Perfect, right!? Well... yes and no. I couldn't find flat tacks, so I bought rounded ones thinking "Hey, I'm a teacher, I can make this work!" Doing jewelry design on the side, I have plenty of different hammers, which made me even more excited. * I mean, how often do you find all the perfect ingredients and it actually turn out the way you want? *

I tried to hammer them flat. I really did. I used the table, a metal block, and even the pin board on the wall in the hotel. Nothing. Still concave.

In the heat of the moment, and no wanting to feel defeated, I decided to just use the super glue and glue the stickers to the top. My train of thought went something like this: "It's super glue, it won't come off. Don't touch the sticky glue, I need all 10 fingers today. Sweet, this stuff is working. The stickers fit perfect. Oh man, I got glue on my finger... don't touch anything! Alright, let's sit the tacks upside-down so they don't come off. Phew, that was easy!" 

What am I thinking now? Stupid super glue isn't all that super after all, but I did manage to save my manicure and I still have all of my fingers. FAIL. * I'm only going to mark this as a fail for now because I am determined to make these work! *

Total investment: around $10 in supplies (stickers $3.99 from Michaels, glue ~$3.50 and tacks ~$3.25 from Target)

Even after not being so successful with Monday Made It attempt uno, I kept trucking along. We tell our kids not to give up when they make mistakes, so why should I stop now, am I right?

I don't remember where the idea for this project came from. Honestly, I think I just wanted to buy pretty ribbon and bam! Idea! Let's make a decorative tote / bin / storage container for my lesson plans (since I plan on being a studious 5th year teacher, ya know, and plan 2 weeks ahead... I'll let you know how that works out).

I bought ribbon in 2 different sizes, in 4 colors. I was feeling frisky. So I cut them into strips...

 ...and just tied them on in a pattern. I finished this around 10pm and wasn't exactly excited about the outcome. So Jeffrey took me back to Michaels the next day and he actually picked out the beautiful purple, chevron ribbon. * I love bringing him along because he always finds exactly what I am looking for. I'm so lucky :) *

I wove it around the bin and realized that I needed to secure it, so I was mentally praising the super glue for potentially saving the day.

All I did was put a few lines of the super glue on the actual bin itself, laid the first piece of ribbon down and then put a few more lines of glue on top of that ribbon and lay the second piece of ribbon down on top of it. Bam! Instant workage!

It's very colorful and busy. I'm not sure how long I will like it, but for right now I'm calling it a success story. Positivity, people!

I've ordered some gray hanging file folders for inside, and some gray file folders for inside of those folders. I plan on making cover pages for the inside folders, laminating them, and then using them to store 2 weeks worth of lesson plans.

Seeing as how I changed my mind 3 times before deciding on a classroom color scheme, I'm sure this bin will change before the school year. Either way, it will have a useful purpose! :)

Total investment: around $21 (ribbon: $2-4 at michaels, bin $7 at Staples)

Until next time,