Back To School...already

With back to school coming before we know it, the kids and I decided to get started and get organized.
To start the school year off right, we put together little gift baskets for the teachers. I found most all the items at Target in their dollar isle. Some items I did get at Staples. Little things, like stamps, sticky notes, highlighters, etc, will be a great gift to kick start the school year. I know I'd love something this thoughtful from one of my students. The kids are thrilled to show and share their enthusiasm through these gifts. They still think we should add some candy of some kind too. So sweet!

We've been gradually gathering school supply items as we find them on sale. As we bought the items we needed somewhere to keep track of them until school starts. So, I photocopies their school supply lists so that we'd have one to take to the store with us and stapled the other to a paper grocery sack. As we buy the items we check them off and add them to their individual bags. This is working out great and the kids feel so organized and are beginning to get excited for school. Now for the sales: Staples has huge savings. I signed up to get their weekly ads, which come via email a day or two prior to when they hit the Sunday newspaper shelves. This is awesome, because then I know what penny sales will be available on Sunday morning. One week, the kids got packs of 8 pencils for a penny a pack and packs of 4 glue sticks for a penny. They each were able to get two of each, which went into their paper sacks. Now the new penny sale deal at Staples usually have to be bought with other items that total $5, but so far I just look for other supplies that are a great buy to reach to that price.

You can see inside the bag that we've started to collect our supplies. I think it would be neat to add the price next to the item to see how great a shopper I am when all the supplies are purchased. I might start competing with myself year after year to get a better deal.

FYI: As a teacher, Staples will allow 25 items to be purchased. This is a great way for teachers to stock up their classrooms with supplies for pennies, literally. I always keep certain things on hand and then when a student asks for something, I don't think twice to hand over something that may have cost so little. I love great deals!

Recipe Box

I have tried many times to organize my recipes. I have bought the books that the cards can fit in, but ran out of room to add plastic protectors. I have the three-ring binder with clippings and printed favorites. I often run from one to the next and then to all the cookbooks I have for the one I'm looking for and can't remember which book or binder it is in. I decided that I want to put all my recipes in one place, so I made this box. It will take me some time to get the recipes that aren't on cards yet ready for the box, but I know in the end I'll be happy to have one place to go looking for those recipes. I used the idea from Sister's Stuff to get me started. Great inspiration!

I added the conversion chart to a card in the back of the box so I could have a quick reference. Just another way to keep organized in 2010.

Toy Bags

Organization is the name of the game. My son has too many toys to start, which we will purge eventually. For now though, my goal is to get the toys that have many small parts in the proper bags. So I followed this tutorial at Motherhood for Dummies and made some bags. The fabric I used was a soft denim. I used scrap ribbon or left over canvas like string for the drawstrings. I added felt letters on the front so my son would know which bag was for what toys. Since he is 5 now, the letter-sound correspondence will be great practice too 9T=Trucks, L=Lincoln Logs, B=Blocks). I also tacked down the drawstrings in the back so that he could pull them out by accident. As you can see, they are already being used!