Library update

My goal this week was to get my classroom library organized. Honestly, before Friday I had no idea what books were even in the library. They were all here when I arrived. I was pretty excited to find a whole stack of Boxcar Children (my faves) as well as a large collection of American Girl books. I'm kind of in love with American Girl.

Anyway, here's my library "before" picture...

The curtains are new... everything else needs work!

And here's my library now!

The bins came from the dollar section of Target. They're so cute up close--the sides have little circles on them. I made labels using a free chevron pattern template that I found on Pinterest. They look great with the chevron curtain, which you can't see in this picture. My books are in really random categories, but that doesn't matter to me. I'm just happy that each book has a place to go! I hate when you categorize things and there are one or two items left over. Drives. Me. Crazy.

The rug, which I'm sure you're admiring, was $9 at Kohl's. It is made from upcycled scraps of fabric. Love it! I think I'm going to hang a sign in the corner that says "Firestone Library," which is one of the libraries on the Princeton campus (Princeton is our classroom's college this year).

To keep the library organized (hopefully) I have a container of book markers, which are just Lowe's paint stirrers with the students' numbers on them. Each student can put his or her marker in the appropriate basket when removing a book. This will help the kids remember to put the books back in the right places, or so I've been told :) We'll see if it works for us. At least the paint stirrers were free!

Chair makeover!

I'm so excited about my chair makeover project that I'm writing this post on my phone--no time to get the laptop out! Upon surveying the odd mishmash of chairs in my new classroom, I discovered this beauty:

I have no idea where this chair came from, but its life is about to change...

Okay, I realized earlier as I was blogging on my phone that the Blogger app won't let me put the pictures where I want them to appear on the page. So I am now doing a late-night blog post edit, and I'm moving some photos around. Anyway, that photo up there is my "before" shot: a metal-framed chair upholstered in vomit-pink, with mysterious stains on the cushions. Despite its appearance, this chair is actually super comfortable. Luckily for this potentially ill-fated chair, I fell in love with this adorable chevron fabric and couldn't resist buying a yard. Perfect for my very-first-ever attempt at reupholstery!

Here is a lovely Instagrammed photo of my fabric. The top one is for my curtains, which I made last night. Photos to come, once I replace the warped curtain rods. The bottom fabric was just calling my name!

So this morning I headed over to my classroom, armed with my tool kit and staple gun (side note: I noticed today that most of my tools are pink. Kind of embarrassing). I managed to take the chair apart, and then I just did what I've seen people do on HGTV: I just started pulling the fabric tight and stapling it. Over and over and over. (Another side note: this process only takes ten minutes on HGTV. That is not the case in real life.

The underside of the chair. That's my pink phillips head screwdriver right there. Since she's pink, she's actually a Philippa head.

This process was made easier by the fact that all the hardware on this cheaply made chair was visible and easily accessible. Nothing my pink wrench couldn't handle! Here's a quick photo run-down of my upholstery process. I tried to document it with my phone, but I kept forgetting to take pictures...

I removed the seat first... did a rough measure and cut...

Then I began pulling the fabric as tight as I could and stapling it in place. First the front and back of the seat, and then the sides. Note: be careful not to cover up the holes! You'll need those in order to reassemble the chair :)

I had to take my jewelry off before I could start staple... the staple gun kept getting caught on my Pandora bracelet! (Isn't my Stella & Dot vintage twist bracelet adorable? Can you tell I am a Stella & Dot stylist? www.stelladot.com/jenniferhunter)

The back of the chair was screwed together, and it came apart in two pieces. Perfect! I covered them both, the same way I did the seat...

Then I screwed them back together and reattached them to the frame of the chair.

My hard work paid off: I am incredibly proud of my new Teacher Chair! I even decorated a bulletin board to coordinate with it :)

Time to Scotch Guard this bad boy!

Okay, I lied. Here is a picture of one of my new curtains. I love them! Would it be weird if I made a matching skirt?

I'm moving!

Happy summer to all three of my readers! :)

I started this blog at the beginning of the school year as a way to document some of my more creative ideas, and to sort of "give back" since I feel like I just take and take and take other teachers' ideas off the internet! I'm not sure if anyone is actually taking the ideas I'm putting out there, but at least I've eased my conscious a little bit! :)

Last month, I received some incredibly exciting news... I had applied for a fourth grade classroom position, and I GOT IT!!! I am staying with the same school, but I am moving out of the suburbs and to our campus in East Memphis. I am beyond excited about this. I have some great friends who teach there (I'm not even going to think about the great friends that I am leaving... nope, too sad, can't think about it) and I am ready for the change in environment. I have felt called to move out of the 'burbs and into the city, and I am so thankful that God has allowed me to do so while staying within the same school community.

Of course, my summer got a lot busier! I am SO overwhelmed with the amount of planning and organization that I have ahead of me! Due to other obligations this summer (VBS, family vacation, mission trip, etc.) I haven't had much time in my classroom. Here's what it looks like right now:

I added a nice Instagram filter to make it look cooler :) Actually, it looks worse than this now; after I took this picture, I started pulling stuff out of my closet, so now it looks like an Office Depot exploded on top of the desks. But look! Look at my awesome Smart board! Look at the laptop cart! Woo-hoo!!!

Here is my to-do list for next week... oh boy... maybe I'll make that the next two weeks!

• find cute fabric and start making curtains and table skirts (I started this, but I couldn't find any fabric I liked. I went to three stores! Unfortunately, I had already decided in my mind what I wanted, and apparently no one makes that fabric.)
• once I find my dream fabric, take a trip to Knowledge Tree to pick out coordinating bulletin board trim, cute lettering, motivational wall posters, etc.
• arrange the furniture
• finish cleaning out and organizing the closet
• search for a new desk chair (it's not in the photo, but you should see my olive green pleather chair. I think it was a prop from the set of Welcome Back, Kotter)
• inventory my classroom library and decide on an organization system

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...