Friday, October 12, 2012

Store Your Books With Style!

It's no secret that a "tool" in our counselor tool belt is books.  I absolutely love reading, reading to classes and just books in general.  In some previous posts, I've shared my love for books and have taken several measures to try to keep my counselor books somewhat organized.

After using my book crawler app to scan in my books and assigning them to a category (i.e. bullying, character ed, friendship, etc) I wanted to separately categorize the books.  Well wouldn't luck have it, the librarian at my school was doing some cleaning and had these book/folder holders on the staff, free giveaway table (wish I'd gotten there earlier to get more).

Free book holders!

Who knew that a little bit of scrapbook paper and adhesive spray could spruce up these book holders:

Spray adhesive on, let dry for 30-45 seconds before putting on scrapbook paper.

Spray adhesive, or any type of glue will work.

Add scrapbook paper and trim off the edges.  I used the leftover scraps to glue to the front.
Recovered book holders
I made some labels to put on the front of each box to identify/categorize the books.  I printed them on Post-It mailing labels (3 1/3 " X  4", 6 labels per sheet).

Labels, I found these on clearance ($6, I think) at Office Depot

Printed labels
If you'd like a printable copy of the labels (with the text above) click here.

Blank labels printable
If you'd like the blank labels printable with just the borders (where you can write what you choose on the labels) click here.

Here's the finished product:


I also used the labels to add to storage baskets (some with more books) in my cabinet.

Labels on storage bins (Target $6.99)

Total cost for the project:  $0, the book holders were free and I had all the other supplies already.  As I've said time and time again, free is my favorite price!  This was a super easy fix to add a little flare to the way my counselor books are stored.  I really wish that I had gotten more book holders because I have many more book categories (I know to act fast for next time)!

How do you keep your counselor books organized?

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2 comments:

  1. I found an idea on Pinterest that has worked so well! I got (free) paint sticks from Home Depot, then printed off address labels with the different categories on them to adhere to the ends of the paint sticks. After sorting the books into their themes on the bookshelf, insert the paint sticks to show where one category begins and one ends. Here's a link: http://pinterest.com/pin/69454019223545876/

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  2. LOVE this idea!!!! Such a creative way to organize your books by topic!

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