The Teacher Toolbox
The first project I started was the teacher toolbox, I'm sure you've seen these all over Pinterest and label templates on TpT. I looked at some of the label designs and decided to just make mine own, and just for you guys I'll attach those for you to download and customize if you want. I used backgrounds from different sports: football, baseball, basketball, track, volleyball, and soccer. I bought this tool box at Lowe's and spray painted it red for our school color. In the label template document, you can type in what you want each drawer labeled and print off however many from each sport that you want. I did 5 of each sport for the small drawers (30 of those) and then picked 3 sports for the big drawers (9 of those). I got my sports backgrounds from a Google image search of "sport name + digital scrapbook paper". You can find all kinds of backgrounds just searching for what you want. One tip though, make sure the images are larger than the template boxes so that the pattern won't look grainy or distorted when you print them out.
You can get the template I made here.
Continuing on in the process, I Googled some images of other toolboxes to see what most teachers labeled each of their drawers. I made a list of the most common ones and the ones that would apply to me (yes, I'm that analytical!) and decided on some of them. Being as I opted for the larger toolbox, I had more drawers than the images I saw, so I just decided to leave the extra drawers blank and figure out what else I need once school gets going and I'll go "why didn't I think of that one before"! Next, I printed out all of my labels on cardstock. At this point, some people laminate them but I didn't want to bother. If they fall off, big deal I 'll print another one! But, I did look into how people were attaching them, some used tape, others glue or printing them out on label paper, but I really didn't like any of those options. Which led me to my craft room and I knew exactly what I was looking for...my Xyron!! If you don't have one of these, you need to invest the $20 for it! I LOVE my Xyron, you can turn anything you print out (5 inch width max on my machine...there is a bigger one) and turn it into a sticker! After I printed and cut out each of my labels (cut using my Silhouette Cameo...another great investment) I ran them through the Xyron and made stickers of each label. I currently have repositionable adhesive in my machine (they also have permanent) but I thought some of my labels may need to be changed to something else later on and I didn't want to deal with sticky residue (hence why I didn't want to use the other methods), so I just stuck with the repositionable. Then I stuck them onto the outside of the drawers and put the drawers back into the case. From start to finish this project took about an hour (not including the time to spray paint and let that dry or design my labels). And I am thrilled with my results! It's my first project of many for my classroom and I wish you success on making your own teacher's toolbox!
The next project I have in mind is creating a football field for my room. Yes, I am putting a football field in my room! And I am totally excited about it. And I'm still considering making a baseball field to switch out in the Spring! We'll see, that's a few days from now :)
Football field will be up in a couple days...hopefully! We run a busy life around here!
Leave any questions or comments below and I will try to answer and respond to each of you!
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