Mommy Monday: dry erase organizers

Happy Monday! Today's ideas have endless possibilities for organizing pretty much anything in your life, whether at home or at work. It is my go-to formula for bringing order to chaos!

I'm talking about dry erase boards made from cheap photo frames, scrapbook paper, and stickers.

Can you tell I am a little obsessed? There are so many directions you can go with this- today I'm rounding up a few of the ones I have made so far to get you started with some ideas.

I have already described these in an earlier post, but I have to start with 2 dry erase organizers that I have in my home command center. The first is a cleaning schedule and check list:

I used the back of the paper that came in the frame already as my white background. I used stickers to mark each day of the week, taped strips of scrapbook paper next to each day, and wrote down the "bare necessities" on a few of the strips. Stick it back in the frame and I can check things off with a dry erase marker each week, or add things to the list on another day if other tasks need to be done that week.

The second dry erase organizer in my command center is a weekly calendar:

I bought an 8-frame collage frame from Walmart for this one, and cut a square of scrapbook paper to fit each frame. I noted the days of the week, and a title "this week", with stickers. I write out anything and everything that is happening that week on this calendar, and I use the title frame as a to-do list. I also attached a pen holder to the bottom to keep a dry erase marker handy at all times!

If you want to know more about how I use these two frames, check out my post on my command center.

I also made a home organizer for my sister who is just out of college, working, and living in an apartment with a few roommates.

I experimented with a white frame and I was pretty happy with the way it came out! She doesn't have as much space to hang things, and she doesn't have as much to organize and keep track of, so I made her organizer a a little differently. She still has space to write down important information for each day of the week, but in a smaller area. I also put a space for just "meals" because she loves to cook, but she doesn't usually plan out when she is going to cook what, and she often cooks a big batch of a recipe and eats it for several days anyway. There is space for a to-do list, and a small space for prayer requests she wants to remember. She has a lot of friends that she likes to stay in touch with, especially from college, and while I knew she wouldn't want to write down much on something that is hanging on a wall in a shared apartment, I thought it would be good to have a place to jot a quick note when she thinks of it or has a conversation with someone.

The next two are for work- the first one is for another friend who is an architect and needed something in his office to keep up with all the projects he is managing.

He needs to keep track of what time he is spending on each project, so this is a way for him to write down the date, time spent, and project name so he can have that information in one place. He also has a big to-do spot so that he can keep track of all the different balls he juggles at work. I picked striped paper for the time sheet portion so that he could look across each column more easily, and I tried to use a more "masculine" color scheme so as not to embarrass him in the office ;)

The next work organizer is in my own classroom:

I use these to post my learning objectives for each grade level. I bought frames at the dollar store, and found some glittery paper on clearance too. I hung them on a pillar next to my teacher's desk, added a title poster and pen holder, and now I have an easy way to keep my learning objectives posted and up-to-date! I have also used the same colors from these frames to color-code anything that I use for all the grade levels (like the classes in my printed schedule). I never even explained these to my students, but they caught on right away. My super-engaged students like to come in and look at the frames to see what we are working on that day. It has definitely prevented some of those, "what are we doing today?" questions that I used to get all the time!

So there you have it- 5 different ways to use a photo frame, scrapbook paper, and stickers to create your own dry erase organizer! I hope this gives you some inspiration to create your own organizer to fit your home or work needs! Have you made something like this before? I'd love to hear about it in the comments, or head on over to my Facebook page and show off a photo!

Happy organizing and enjoy another week :)