We’ve reached the second video of my week of All Request August over on HGTV Handmade, and today I have six easy and fast Back to School DIYs for you, featuring Ryan Thomas Woods! Keep reading to watch the video and learn more about each one!
First up was textbook covering! This is definitely a great way to get creative with your school supplies, since once you cover the book with a simple paper bag, you can throw any sort of craft supply on top of that. Today we decided to cover the book with glitter duct tape to make colored stripes, and this book would definitely make me excited to learn. And fun fact – this is exactly how I covered my books when I was in high school, though back then there were only about 15 different colors of duct tape so I had to get even more creative!
Another request we got over and over was fun ways to spice up notebooks. I bought this notebook for pretty cheap on Amazon, but it has a plastic cover that’s hard to craft onto since tape doesn’t stick well to it and any paint or marker would probably scratch off eventually. So instead I grabbed some studs that I bought on sale at H&M of all places, and I attached them to the border of the notebook cover. I think it came out so cute and is perfect for back to school, since after putting some e6000 on the back of the studs, they’ll definitely last all year long.
This next one isn’t so much a DIY was a life hack, but a fun way to stay organized is to color code your classes. You can cover your textbook with the same color as your notebook which is the same color as your binder. This is a really visual way to stay organized and make sure you’re grabbing the right books for each class. And another life hack – you can even write the homework in your planner in a pen that’s the same color as each class!
Probably the most requested DIY we got was how to decorate a pencil case. There are endless ways to decorate a plain pencil case, but I decided to start with a clear makeup bag that’s about pencil-case-sized, and then I embroidered some geometric designs on the side of it in neon thread. This is a really easy way to personalize your pencil case, and you can get as detailed or stay as simple as you want.
But what are you going to put in your pencil case? Personalized pens and pencils of course! We all have kids in our classes who steal all our pens and pencils, so make sure you hang onto yours by covering them in washi tape and then using packing tape to attach a slip of paper with your name on it!
The best way I studied in school was always with flash cards. But I went through stacks and stacks of them, so then I had the idea – why not cover flash cards with dry erase tape to make them reusable? These aren’t great if you’ll be studying for weeks on end since the marker does scratch off pretty easily, but if you just need to review a few things for a quiz the next day they’re perfect and completely reusable.
I hope you guys liked these DIYs, and a huge thanks to Ryan Thomas Woods for being in this video with me! We also shot a video for his channel where we created a fangirl kit for when you meet your bae, so you can watch that over on his channel. If you missed it on Monday, check out my Custom Jenga video with Liam Dryden, and stay tuned until Friday for Back to School Hacks with Matt Schueller!
