Homework Box Tutorial

As I've made very clear we live in a really, really tiny apartment. We live in an amazing city, but real estate is at a premium, so our apartment is pretty tiny. The kiddo has had a small issue keeping her school supplies organized in her desk drawer. She does a really good job, but she loves school supplies so sometimes they tend to take over a bit-especially when I find a good deal! :P So, I found a couple of cool ideas on Pinterest and decided to combine them. This is what I came up with:

I used a shoe box from a pair of shoes we had just bought my daughter. I covered it in duct tape and electrical tape (I don't discriminate I use whatever I have! LOL Then, I took some cute little stick on letters I had and stuck them on there!

The tape went on sort of smoothe. I actually had a worse time with get the electrical tape to stick than the duck tape! So, my suggestion is definitely use duck tape for the whole thing. I used some letters leftover from another project. As you can see that are very in season being all bright and neon. Flashback to the '80's anyone?!

Moving on....

This is the inside of the box. on the lid I just used a glue stick and glued on a set of sticky notes for taking notes and marking pages. To get it to stick to the lid I just turned the notes over to the last page and smeared a glue stick all over the back, then stuck it onto the lid. The long paper is for longer notes, or making notes and then marking a page. It is glued on the same way I did the sticky notes. I added the paperclip on the left just so the paper wouldn't be hanging when the lid is closed. The paper clip on the right is just so the design would be symmetrical! (Yes, that's my weird side coming out, welcome to my brain.)

A close up of the inside of the box. As you can see I decorated everything to coordinate in a non-matching way. Anything in a "holder" is from the recycle bin ;)

Here is the right side of the box. Crayons, markers, glue sticks, and paper clips.

I just took a small box out of the recycling bin, covered it in duck tape and "finished it off" with electrical tape. I then labeled it using some leftover letters I had in my craft bin. Both crayon holders were made the same way. These two little boxes fit like 500 crayons or something ridiculous like that!

This is just a cute little pouch I whipped up out of duck tape to hold the pencils and pens. In order to make the pouch just measure whatever you want the pouch to hold and make it twice as long as the item you want to fit in there, plus at least a half inch-two inches if you want it to have a flap so it will "close",  and at last a half inch wider than the object. Lay down the duck tape (for this pouch I just laid two pencils out and measured the tape that way for length) then just used two strips of duck tape for the width. You will have to now cut two more strips of tape and place the sticky sides together. Then, fold the bottom up and tape together with a coordinating tape (just so it looks pretty you could just use the same tape you had been using lol). If you added a top flap add a magnet or some velcro so it will stay down. 

This is the end of the roll of mustache tape. It was running out and so I just took some paper that had been printed on, but we didn't need anymore so I cut it up and stuck it in here so it isn't floating all over the box! This way she can work out math problems or whatever she needs and then just recycle the paper.

These are the markers and coloured pencils. They are being held in toilet paper tubes! I found these in the recycle bin and knew they'd be perfect! I just covered them in duck tape to make them coordinate.

This I whipped up to hold the tape, paper clips and eraser. I did it the same was as the pencil and pen pouch. I didn't really want anything "floating around" in the box to make it messy, so this did the trick! 

Here is the final product: 

I put in there some graph paper, some college ruled paper, some raw hazelnuts, raisins, and jelly beans (have to have something fun). I'll check it every now and again to see when it needs to be refilled.

I really like this because not only does it free up room in her desk and store nicely on her closet shelf, but it allows her to move around the house and do her homework on the porch if its nice, at the breakfast bar while I cook dinner, or even the park if we want to enjoy the sun while it is still shining. This is also nice for parents who have children that do after school activities and sometimes the kids need to do homework at the football field, soccer field, gym or wherever. 

Other supplies you may want to include: calculator, dictionary, other language dictionary if needed, small thesaurus, any special math tools that may be needed. 

If you'd like come check out my back to school board over on Pinterest! I've been pinning some great ideas to get you organized so the school year is off to the right start! We've only been in a week now, but if you've been in longer it is never too late to get organized! I have some lunch ideas posted here. Go check 'em out! ;)