Find your balance: Pouches and Birthday notes

I'm finally settling down after relaxing all summer but now I'm feeling a bit stressed out! I haven't been working on ANY school projects for the upcoming year! For once I actually put it all away and tried to just relax. It was nice. But now it's crunch time.

The first thing I wanted to change from last year were my Daily Communication Folders. I've never had a year where folders came in so crumpled. torn. literally falling apart in the tub each morning. New fix. This year I'm going to use 1'' binders to see if that makes it easier, for all of us. Although I'm hesitating a bit on being able to store them somewhere. Guess I'll worry about that later?

The second part of the DCF was a zippered pouch to hold lunch money, behavior slips, you know, anything valuable that shouldn't fall out. Shouldn't being the key. Once again though, so many broke, zippers fell off, some even cut off? Yeah, I don't know. New fix for these... Duct taped Ziplock pouches. At least they'll be easier to replace and I made sure not to have a zipper that could fall off. So here's a brief explanation on assembling them. Pretty simple.

Duct tape Ziplock pouch:

Supplies: Duct tape & Ziplock bags. I chose Gallon size because I wanted them to be about the same length as the binder.

At first I taped the bag onto the table so it wouldn't move but after doing a few I realized it didn't move much once I started with the duct tape, so just do whatever works best!

I trimmed off about a third of the end of the bag to fit within the binder.

I then tried to 'eye' where to lay the duct tape. I covered about half the ziplock and half off. Later the other side of the duct tape will stick to it. I also had a bit stuck to the table to help hold it. Later this will get tucked.

After that turn the ziplock over so the sticky side is up. Again try to 'eye' overlapping the next strip. I started above the strip underneath so it'd stick once it was tucked over.

Once you cut the end leave a bit of extra to tuck over and stick back onto the duct tape.

After both sides are tucked over you can check to see if you need to trim any from the end. Sometimes I didn't line mine up the best and there was duct tape sticking out. I didn't want it to stick to things.

Lastly, I three hole punched the end. At first I tried using a 3-hole punch but it didn't come out and I tore it trying. Maybe mine was dull? Instead I used a single hole punch and that worked better. I did notice again, sometimes it didn't punch all the way through so I trimmed it off with scissors. Again, maybe my hole punch was dull?

Finished pouch! I hope the duct tape will hold. If not, I can trim off the end and just re-punch them. That's my plan anyways.


Almost ready to go into the Daily Communication Folders... the last thing I need to do is put a label on the front explaining what goes into the pouch. These will either be a label stuck on the front or something taped on.

I also started working on birthday goodies. In the years past I've created little notebooks, certificates, and just last year I made the curly straws that were floating all around Pinterest. So this year I wanted to do something different. Of course I browsed through Pinterest and various blogs looking for something to make. I started noticing a lot of pencil toppers, cute cupcakes and such. I decided my 'gift' would be a pencil this year. Last year it seemed like my kiddos were always running out of pencils. Lost. Stolen. Used... I don't know. So I ordered some personalized pencils that say Happy Birthday from me. I can't wait until they get here! Any day. To go with the pencils I decided to make a little note card for the pencil to slide through. It was a simple design I created on word and glued onto some scrapbook paper I've had for years. Here's another brief explanation. Again, very simple! And on a side note, I have NO idea why they're coming up sideways? I'm not tech savvy enough to figure it out so just turn your head a bit okay!

Birthday Note card with Pencil slot:

I created a Word document and used a 'talk bubble' and added text. I downloaded the cute fonts online. The Happy Birthday is in jack story and the signature is a gentle touch. Again if I was tech savvy I'd try to add a link. Sorry.