Repurposed Counselor's Mailbox

In my school we have these old mailboxes on several random doors that don't seem to have any purpose other than for kids to put trash in or to flick the lid up and down as they pass them. I happened to be in need of a new place for kids to put their requests to see the counselor slips so I took one of them (with my principals permission of course) to re-purpose  Last year I made one from a manila envelope and it was looking pretty rough. I try to be crafty but I am not very good at it so here is what I did. My first thought was to spray paint it but I found it to be too bent up and thought it would show so much that it would not be that attractive. So I grabbed my favorite tool, my glue gun, and got to work with some scrap paper that I had left over.


I cut the paper to fit the lid and I then hot glued it a lot so that hopefully it will not come off throughout this year (I plan on covering it differently next year). I then took a 5x7 manila envelope and cut about two inches off of the bottom to hold the request to see the counselor slips which I glued to the front of the mailbox. I took twine to tie a pen to the box  through the conveniently located hole in the middle of the box so I tied a knot on the other end to hold it in.

I liked the way it turned out and am happy with it. The kids seem to like it and it does the job!

Request to the Counselor slips.
Comment with your email address
and I will send you the template.

Why blog?

A couple things about me...I am not a writer and I am not sure I can be a blogger, I am a horrible speller (thank god for spell check! In fact I wish I had an internal spell check because as I take notes in meetings I often find myself scribbling out words or writing sp* next to it so that if someone sees my notes they realize that I am aware of my horrible spelling), I am ADHD so please go easy on me if I start talking about one thing and end up discussing something completely different before finalizing my thoughts, and I am absolutely loving my "job" which I place in quotes because everyday I leave thinking, "that was fun I cannot wait until tomorrow", then is it really a "job" or "work"?

My name is Stephanie and I am an Elementary School Counselor in South West, Virginia. I am a K-12 Certified School Counselor, a Nationally Certified Counselor, a MICHE Representative, a girlfriend (of 11 years...yes I know I know), a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, and the author of this blog. I list so many because I find that school counseling often takes over my life, my thoughts, my plans and I must become better at time management and remembering what is MOST important to me and that is my wonderful family and friends. As a 2nd year Professional School Counselor (PSC) I know that this will become easier as time goes by and I find my groove but for right now it can be overwhelming. I find that I have so many ideas and that I want to help everyone (and have a hard time saying no) so I really have to prioritize and realize that sometimes the ideas will have to wait until next school year so that I so not overload myself. 

I get very excited talking about School Counseling and the awesome things we get to do. So, the reason that I wanted to start this blog is to share ideas with fellow PSCs, get insight, and through this hopefully learn how to be the best School Counselor I can be while continuing to also fill the many other roles in my life that often get neglected. In grad school they pressed self-care and burnout so much and I thought it was a little over kill but I realize now why and I hope that this blog can help me figure out the best way to care for myself and my kiddos at school.