Organizing your Classroom Library with Paint Sticks

I have been waiting since March to do this!  I just made this fairy garden this week but I've had the idea since March.

I LOVE the summer when I can make all the things I have dreamed up, pinned, and or needed to re-do.  Sometimes it goes great.....other times..... it's a complete flop.

This project was a little of both.

I am so grateful to Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for hosting Monday Made It every Monday during the summer months. 

Last week, I made pencil shoes, this week...a fairy garden.

It looks easy, right?

and it was...for the most part. Except for this part....

I saw these bird houses on sale for $1 at Jo Ann's and thought they would made great fairy houses.  I should have stopped there.

I thought they would look great covered with rocks/pebbles.  Pebbles, Julie. Pebbles. Not rocks. 

I spent 10 minutes in the adhesive aisle.  I spent almost $7 on this

because it said it was used for wood, metal, leather, plastic, stones, glass, and more. Sooooo.... hello?!

Not so much....

I would have taken a picture but my fingers were stuck together and my husband was coming and I didn't want him to see the huge mess in the kitchen.  It was just downright embarrassing. 

Luckily, I had some moss in the house. I covered it up.

Unluckily, this adhesive did not come off my hands for about 3 days.  Seriously?!

4 days later...I found this

at The Christmas Tree Shop. Slap to the forehead. Wish I knew about this stuff before. Oh well....next time...

The picket fence was from JoAnn's: $5

The Fairy was $7 from JoAnn's.

The larger stones were from my parents garden (shhh. Don't tell them.)

The chairs and tables were old doll house furniture of mine. When I say old....I mean....old. Trust me.  I have NO idea where they came from.

My classroom library is always a work in progress, it seems. My teacher books, I am trying out a new system.

Whoever designed these cabinets in my school should be subjected to bus duty and recess duty every day consecutively for a 6 month minimum.

These cabinets are like a foot wide.  It's just not practical. You can fit a stapler in there and maybe be able to shut the cabinet. It drives me bonkers. 

I believe shelf space should be for the students. For them to access books, manipulatives, and materials. So I took my teacher books off my shelves and moved them into my cabinets and that worked great

Until....I couldn't shut the doors.

Oh great! Now what?!  Well...don't tell the custodians but I jammed rearranged the books so they would fit and made to for the remainder of the school year.

Until....

I made these....

I know....Martha Stewart....move over.  Home Deport gave me 50 of these for FREE.  FREE, people!!!!  I could have made them all pretty and spray painted them but I really don't have time for all that and I knew they wouldn't be seen anyway. So I used some Duct Tape and letter stickers and now I can organize my teacher books by topic and actually see where they go.

I can also organize by theme.  Again...nothing fancy. But I think it looks nice.

And the custodians are probably happy they won't have to fix broken cabinet doors anymore.  :)

What projects are you working on?  I love hearing about and seeing what others are making!