Letting my Creative Juices Flow....

If you do not know me then I have to tell you straight off the bat that I am the LEAST creative person I know. I like arts and crafts, they just never turn out the way I expect but it is fun to try. As I mentioned in my last post I have been pinning things like crazy trying to come up with ideas for my classroom. Now, I am married and broke so anything that I can make, or try to make, for free or very little money is very appealing to me. Today I tried my best to make some of the things I had in mind and lets just say things did not happen the way I had planned.

So one thing that actually is in the process of working out is some pencil holders for my desk and for colored pencils. My amazing MIL has been saving cans for me for weeks and I finally had a day off to craft. Unfortunately the paint that I had is not working very well on the cans and I will need to buy new paint, but that is ok :) I think they will be very cool when I get done with them.

The top part of this picture is essentially what they will look like. I am also painting cans to match the color of colored pencil that I will store in them because I am OCD like that.

 

 

The next little project that I was working on was a three tier organization bin made from cereal boxes and covered with the fabric of my choice. It was going great until I found out that paper will not fit inside of said boxes. This totally ruined my plans for the boxes because I wanted to use them to organize papers that needed to be graded, filed, and copied. I am sad that it didn't work out but the same type of bin that will actually fit paper is only about 10 bucks at Wal-Mart.

Next I worked on making a bin for my students where they could anonymously write anything that they wanted and put inside. They could write suggestions for me, comments about the class, or shout-outs to their fellow students. I have terrible handwriting and it is kind of plain right now but it definitely will work for what I want to use it for. My MIL gave me the bucket as a part of my graduation gift and I just reused it for this :)

I worked on putting some finishing touches on my "pencil poster" that my wonderful, loving husband made for me. I absolutely love it!

I also laminated some quotes from my MIL. My plan is to make a cork board bulletin board filled with quotes from my students and I thought it would be cool to start with the ones I already had.

One last craft idea from pinterest (not done today) was my "No Name" board. If students turn in a paper with no name on it I can just pin it up until someone claims it!

I also spent time coming up with a list, because that is what I do, of things that I still need for the classroom and to complete my list of crafts! I have always been the type of person to make lists, I have my mother to blame for that!

 

I had some frustrating moments today with the crafts but I did not let it get me down. Today showed me that I have grown a lot in the patience department and that I have realized not everything is going to go the way I planned. The important thing is to roll with the punches and not let it get me down. This is something that I hope to take to the classroom with me. I know there will be days where my lesson plans fall short or don't work out. It is important for me to be able to bounce back without letting it get to me.