Monday Made It 8-4-14

Monday Made it Part 3!

I know I showed the desk earlier as part of a Wordless Wednesday, but I'm including it since I finally finished the matching Mailboxes to go with it!

Before

After

The matching Mailboxes! These mailboxes are going on their 16th year. My mom bought them her first year teaching, and last school year got a new set. I had a different set that I inherited from somewhere before I even had a classroom, but they were in really, really bad shape. I wish I had taken a before picture of my current set, there were layers and layers of old name tags that refused to peel off, and since I used 3M hooks on the side to hang my passes the paneling on the sides was peeling in spots. I LOVE contact paper!

Chevron contact paper for the sides and on to the back, Whiteboard contact paper for the rest of the back with a cute Lime Green polka dot border and some Lime Green masking tape for the front plastic and they are like all new mailboxes! I just need to decide how I will attach the kids names. I'm thinking about using the number system this year since labels do not easily come off book bins, so maybe I'll spray paint some binder clips and add numbers that way. Besure to check back in a week or so to see what I decide!

 I forgot to take a picture of the finished back, and I need help deciding what I will use it for, so when I stop into school tomorrow I will update the post and would love ideas!

I didn't make this the Awesome Lindsey from http://lpaulldesigns.blogspot.com/ did.  My Blog got a new design this week!  I am so excited about the way it looks, and she even made me a matching cover photo for my soon to exist Facebook and a banner for my Brand new TPT store.

I made my first product for TPT this week! I have made so many of my own things for my classroom I decided to share my new Birthday board.  I have also started going through all of the things I have made over the last 2 years I have been teaching and the 2 years I was a reading tutor (and hadn't discovered TPT) so see what else I can share.

School starts again for Teachers on the 25th so I know I will have a lot more Monday Made Its to show in the next few weeks!

Monday Made it

Yesterday I spray painted plastic tubs for the first time and discovered I am a very messy spray painter!

Green fingers!

How do you get paint off of rings?

I should have had my husband take a picture for me to show that I was these colors from my knees down, my feet looked like Smurfett.

I am pretty excited about how everything came out.  I initially planned on painting only my math tubs.

I inherited these from my aunt and uncle with the wooden stand!

My room is mainly Lime greens and teal so the primary colors really weren't working for me at all.  I used them this way last school year and was going to just continue to ignore the color until I learned through fellow bloggers on IG that Rustoleum 2 in 1 paint and primer works on plastic.

Then I found the tool box while buying my spray paint, so that was added to my list.  And while wondering Target the other day I found the 3 drawer file drawers on sale for $7.50 (usually $8.99) and decided they needed some paint too.  I thought I was all done finding things to paint, when I went to visit my parents this weekend.  They had cleaned the garage earlier in the week and found a bunch of directors chairs a family friend had given them.  I couldn't take them all since my mom is a teacher too, but 1 chair was a tall one and didn't match the rest so now I have a directors chair that of course needed to be painted!

The teal and lime green I planned to start with.

All of my goodies to paint!

I ran out of paint part way through the process, 2 cans is not enough for all of the things I added to my list to paint.  When I went to buy more paint I decided to add yellow to the mix.

This is the only pic I took before running to get more paint.

I want to mention a few things I learned, other than don't stand where the paint will get on your feet or hold the bucket in your hand when painting! 

First, DO NOT spray paint on plastic!  I thought I was being nice to my husband and protecting our grass, but I think I got so messy because of the plastic, and the things were sticking to the plastic.  When I lifted them up, some of the paint around the tubs peeled off the plastic and stuck to the tub. Fortunately my husband had something delivered from amazon partway through this adventure so I was able to steal the huge box. 

Second, if you are going to spray paint a bunch of stuff like I did buy one of these.

It makes it much easier on your fingers, and helps you to move more smoothly back and forth.  It hooks right on the top of the spray paint and can be moved from can to can very easily.

The finished products!

New Math Tubs

Teacher tool box, and 1 of the 3 file drawers for my Monday-Friday bins and Copy/File/Grade bins

Ok, most the way finished.  I need to add the drawer covers I have already made to the toolbox and file drawers.  

All projects are kinda like giving a mouse a cookie.  Now I want to paint the wooden stand for my math tubs, I just need to decide what color, and I want to paint the canvas for the directors chair, maybe even add my name!  My goal is to have them done by next Monday I can post the 100% finished products, in addition to a few other things I started today!

Kelly