Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Summer has come...and gone!

Wow!  The time has surely flown by this summer! My back to school panic started a little earlier than normal.  I was fortunate to have been chosen for a district iPad grant which will allow me to have a 2:1 ratio in my classroom next year!  However, new technology always comes with new ideas, new professional development, which in turn does not allow me to sleep, relax or do ANYTHING but school!  I guess that's when you know you are excited to begin a new year.

I also thought it would be a great idea to move into a bigger room this past May, so while developing Ipad lessons, I am also redoing, structuring and decorating my new classroom!  Needless to say, I have been in school mode for the past few weeks.  Hopefully, you haven't made that transistion quite yet, and are still enjoying time by the pool reading your romance novel.

I am looking forward to sharing some of my DIY projects with you that I plan to incorporate into my classroom for this upcoming school year.

File Cabinet Redo

I inherited these lovely file cabinets my first year of teaching (8 years ago!) stickers, dented drawers, ancient worksheets and all!
They have seen better days! 

 Instead of using my time wisely and actually cleaning out the drawers, I decided to change their appearance.I found this amazing file cabinet redo on First Grade Fairy Tales, that I couldn't resist! 


Materials: 

Gray spray paint (about two bottles per cabinet)
Purple contact paper from amazon (it cost about 20.00 but had PLENTY for all three cabinets).


Once you have gathered your supplies, spray paint your cabinets.

Being that file cabinets are not mobile, it was nice having another teacher, Mr. McDavitt, help me move them.  This went surprisingly well for me, considering my history of clumsiness and broken bones.  We only ended up spilling one cabinet over in the courtyard, oops!
We safely got this one to the courtyard! 

Before I spray painted these specific cabinets I had to get all the stickers off.  Hopefully the cabinets you have inherited do not have the same problem.  Any razor blade will do the trick.  I got most of the stickers off the cabinet and then got them spray painted.  Thankfully, no sanding was needed for this metal.

After the cabinets had dried, Brian and I moved them back inside and I began adhering the contact paper.  The size of each drawer was 11.5 x 13.5. I would suggest allowing a little extra to cover your entire drawer, the paper trims very easily.

Be sure before you adhere your contact paper to take off all of your handles and locks.  This again, was quite the task.  Fortunately, Mr. McDavitt was able to help get the handles off.  I came out with only a few scratches and bruises,  I say that's a win!

Once all of your handles have been removed, attach contact paper and smooth from the middle outwards.  This will allow you to get most of the bubbles out of your contact paper.  Attach your handles back to your drawers and viola,  a new set of beautiful file cabinets!!


Now if only I can get the motivation to clean them out.










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