DIY School Memory Boxes on a Budget – FREE PRINTABLE!
Emerson recently started preschool, and I can hardly believe it! Her first day was full of nerves and a few tears, but she came home glowing! Her first words when she ran through the day was, “School is amazing!”
Each day she is bringing home artwork and worksheets – some of which I want to keep forever (her first time writing her name!) and others are less precious. But when I found one I want to keep, I didn’t have a great storage solution. Which meant they were just littering the kitchen counter for a few days. Not ideal!
I heard about school memory boxes, but most of them were somewhere between $85 and $100. With three kids to plan for, I wanted to DIY a version that would save me some money, but also wouldn’t take me too much time to hack. I think I found the perfect method and I want to share it with you! Included below is a link to all the items I purchased, and a link to my Canvas template that I used to create their name labels and a fun questionnaire for each grade. It’s free for you to make a copy of a use!
Supplies:
Waterproof storage bins (I purchased for $10.79 at Target – the same bin is $26 on Amazon!)
Hanging files (I got a set of 50. You will need 14 for each box. It comes with the divider tabs and labels.)
Sticker paper for the printer (I already had this one hand since we use it to make our own Yoto card labels)
Canva printable – includes both the name labels and the worksheet for each year of school! You’ll need a free Canva account to access it.
The Method
- I customized each child’s label with a unique color, printed it on adhesive paper, and trimmed the “sticker” to fit the front of the box.
- I sorted the files by color so that each of my three children had four file colors (Oliver got the greens and blues, the girls got the pinks, purples, and yellows).
- The Canva file has a questionnaire for each year of school, toddler through 12th grade. I printed a set for each box. I chose to just drop the questionnaire at the front of each year’s file, but you could also glue the questionnaire to the front of the file for that year if you prefer.
- I completed the labels and added the tabs them to the files. Pro tip! Don’t use a sharpie like I did! It’s too thick to neatly write – lesson learned!
- Complete any of the questionnaires for this year! Emerson and Elliot loved answering questions about themselves, and they were thrilled when I printed their picture and added it to their sheet.
All in all, I spent about $17 per box, and I’m very happy with the result. I can’t wait to fill these up in years to come!
