A Simple School Paper Organizer

This post is sponsored by Cricut

My girls went back to school a few weeks ago (all four are in some sort of school this year!) and with that has come the flood of papers that school brings. With that much paperwork and projects, I knew I needed some sort of school paper organizer to keep it all organized and off every other surface of my home!

I have a plastic magazine holder for each of my girls so that all those school papers have a home.

school paper organization

 

We use these school paper organizers two ways:

  1. They’re a staging ground for papers that need to be signed and returned to school, homework that’s due at the end of the week or other paperwork that is coming and going.
  2. To hold papers and projects they want to save. Obviously, there is a LOT of school paperwork that isn’t worth saving – coloring pages, worksheets, and non-special drawings – but there are also special things they want to save, from report cards to art projects, original writing to awards. This is a place to hold all of that throughout the year and then at the end of the year, we go through it all, scan or photograph everything and print it in a photo book where it’s all in one place and easy to store.

The magazine holders are plastic and white, so they don’t get banged up or broken . . . but they’re also boring and hard to tell apart.

paper organization office

Cricut to the rescue!

paper organization home

I used my Cricut Explore 3 to personalize each of their magazine holders so it’s easy to identify them at a glance. My girls loved looking through the different Cricut fonts to pick the perfect one and I printed their names with blue removable vinyl and then I used green removable vinyl on the front with the school year on it (for even more glam, these metallic vinyls are extra fun!).

how to use a cricut

I’d never used a Cricut machine before this fall and I was instantly hooked – it was so simple to use and it comes out looking SO professional.

cricut

I’d always been worried that it would be difficult to use, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. It literally took me less than 5 minutes to get it setup and then about 90 seconds to design and cut the vinyl for these magazine holders.

how to organize school papers

I really love Cricut’s tool kit that has a paper/vinyl cutter plus the weeder tool for easily removing even the most intricate of designs.

simple school paper organizer

Now when the girls come home from school with their backpacks spilling over with priceless memories (or forms to sign), everyone knows right where they go and they’re not lying all over my house or getting ruined by a sibling.

(Or recycled by a mother who didn’t know that it was an irreplaceable heirloom artwork . . .)

school paper organizer

It’s a win for everyone.

I’d love to hear how you handle school paperwork! Do you have a good system for managing it?

And if you want to check out Cricut, you can see all the options here – there are so many great tools for making back-to-school more organized and beautiful!

paper organization

Photos by Heather Mildenstein

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2 Comments

  1. So they just unload everything into their magazine holder every day- from things to sign/current papers they need to artwork they want to keep? Is there a way you separate all of that to know what is timely and what isn’t? Do you let their artwork/report cards from the whole year accumulate in there? It doesn’t seem like there would be enough space… Curious about all of this because I feel like I could be doing ours better!

    Thanks in advance! I love your blog!

  2. We have three littles (a 5, 3, and 2-month-old) and the two olders bring home copious amounts of artwork/worksheets from kindergarten/preschool. And don’t want any of it to be thrown away. Instead of fighting that battle daily, we introduced the art basket. Literally everything goes in the basket, no arguments, and then every few months I take a big handful from the bottom of the stack and sort through it, recycling most pieces and saving the few I want to keep. And the recycled pieces go in the outside recycling bin, so they won’t be pulled out 🙂 Of course, we also display pieces on the fridge/walls, but this is a great solution for the vast majority!

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