Two things I love to try to improve:
calendar systems for our family and my work, and stuff (decor/functional items/magnet toys) on the fridge.

I, like, never know what day it is. (MintMegan always knows everything about today and tomorrow and the rest of the week. Because her calendars are freaking awesome. And she uses them.) My latest plan to rectify this sad, sad situation was to put my planner and journals on the white desk and use the bulletin boards for notes about what’s going on. Since I’m still sort of reeling from the disaster I’ve created trying to “organize things” before they’re moved into school.office, that hasn’t worked out. But as I was glaring at the desk from across the room the other day, I happened to think that the REFRIGERATOR IS WIDE ENOUGH FOR 7 POST-IT NOTES. And paper tape border.

I proceeded to measure to be sure. Yes, yes, the fridge is JUST wide enough for 7 post-its, with border to the inside. So I went to work.

I’ve got to admit that it was trial and error and bright ideas until suddenly everything was on the fridge and it just WORKED. I’ll spare you the how-I-got-there details and concentrate on what went right!

Paper tape. Target has packs of four rolls that coordinate with their office supplies. I, true to the absolute sickness that is my office supply problem, have managed to collect all of these. I am not sure how I picked what went on the fridge, but I do know I used my 3-inch-wide craft ruler to keep the lines of tape sort of straight. (I made 35 spaces – 5 “weeks” of 7 days.)

Button magnets. These come in packs of, like, 52, and are less than an inch in diameter (I, apparently, was going for extreme angles when I did these photos). You’re like, “What do I need with 52 choking hazards?” but somehow it’s not enough. I bought two packs. And had to make myself put back a third. (I prepped 36 magnets. Because I was all like, “35 divided by 3 equals 12-ish.”)

Glitter glue. This stuff is mostly transparent on the super dark magnets, but it does sparkle. And it’s awesome. I did a drop of glue in the center of 18 of the magnets, then stuck them to blank magnets (and pulled apart fairly quickly) so the (totally arbitrary) “top” of each magnet was coated with glitter glue. (Clear as mud.)

I wrote out 1-31 on silver foil star stickers, and stuck them to the magnets when the glitter glue was dry. I went ahead and glittered the back of 31, since it’ll get flipped over when there are just 30 days. Hopefully before February I’ll remember to add glue to 29 and 30. Yeah.

Et voilà. When I get back into the swing of actually planning out our days (instead of flying by the seat of my pants like I have been lately), I’ll be able to stack meal plans and notes about school themes and action sets and notes about important anniversaries and such into each little square.

So far I’ve liked being able to just swap the notes if something changes, and I know it’ll be super easy to color code stuff with different colors of post-it note. And, hey, since I’ve decided to use magnets, I could just use “normal” paper (but then I’d have to chop it up… trade offs…)

We’ll see how it goes!

15 Nov This entry was published on November 15, 2012 at 9:23 pm. It’s filed under inside and tagged diy, home. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.