D.Z. Mars Creative

I've been working on ways to cover my shelves and make my room look more unified, all without spending too much money.  Here's how I've been doing this: Take black butcher paper and cut to desired size. Put a cute picture from a calendar in the middle (Dollar Store calendars rock) Put a border at the bottom. Laminate the whole shebang. Attach with a strip of color-coordinated duct tape to the shelf above. If you're working with a very wide shelf, it might be a good idea to make separate "doors" that are half or 1/3 of the width of the shelf.  That way, you don't need to lift a long, heavy flap.  Just lift the little door you want to move. As an added bonus, you can say, "Hey, Joey, go get a dictionary.  They're behind the tiger!" The side of my cheap utility shelves that make the side of my classroom library area:   Covered back side of my (sagging) utility shelves.  I store class library books on the other side...

So, this year, I'm trying really hard not to spend a ton of money on my classroom.  I think last year, I spent well over a thousand dollars, which is kind of silly.  This year, I want to totally change my color scheme (from every color known to man in a dizzying melange guaranteed to induce hyperactivity) to teal/lime/black.  I'm hoping to accomplish this with spray paint made for plastic (Rustoleum in light blue and lime green) and black background paper.  I reallllly want to buy black fabric, but I don't want to spend even more than I'm already spending. This is part one of how I am uniting my color scheme for (somewhat) cheap this year.  I will do more posts when I can actually get into my classroom, which is currently being used for a summer academy, I've been asking around for those cruddy wire shelving storage cubes that get put together with the corner connectors.  Everybody seems to have some to give away because they fall apart.  The tr...

I've been a good and prolific little writer as of late.  Today, I wrote an article on my Hubpages about how I built a free-standing pet gate with no tools and under $25.  I actually came up with the idea just by wandering around and around in Home Depot until the moment came to me. Click here to read the article. Here's what the finished product looks like:                                                    I'm rather proud of it.  My cats have not found a way to jump over it or move it in the week and a half  I've had it up. The best part about all this is that I can now have my bedroom door open again... haven't been able to do this since M-the-bed-peeing-cat moved in 5 years ago.  Now, in winter, my bedroom won't be 20* below zero at night!  The humidity level from the shower won't make the room turn into a mini-Juma...