Favorite back to school supplies
 

Okay, so it's almost Back to School shopping time, and though I don't really get to do it anymore, I'm still obsessed with school supplies. Anybody else? There's just nothing like a good...

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Mead Composition Book or even some...

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Lisa Frank pencils.

So what are your favorite things to buy for you (or your kids) at the start of a new school year? I'm a really big fan of calendars and planners (as well as obviously Lisa Frank pencils. I didn't just pull that one out of the air.) I never actually use the planner during the year, but I love the possibilities of it. So many assignments that could be planned out in advance. So many days to be filled. Planners have potential.

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Yes. Yes. Yes. School supplies make me so friggen happy I can't even express it.

I have my trusty black leather filofax because the standard issue planners from school are pants.

Always.
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Whichever matches my paperchase bag for the year
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RIGHT? They're just.so.good. I can't express it either. School supplies feel like starting over so much more than New Year's Eve does, though. Literal blank slates. I'M SUCH A FAN.

OMG LISA FRANK YAAAAAAY. I had so many Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers over the years.

I love back to school shopping for my kiddos (not so much the spending money part, but hey), and since I heart stationery and such, that part is always fun. I did a bit of stocking up when I was in Seattle at the beginning of the year and made my sister take me to Daiso - Japanese dollar store of amazing, unfortunately only available in select areas in the US - because they have great cheap pencils, notebooks, and other cute things covered in Engrish (for example, Mimi got a notebook with a cheerful cartoon turtle on it what says "STROLL OF TURTLE" & another one with a pink girly skull and crossbones what says "HAPPY SKULL! KISS HER!").

But the main event for back to school for me is always bento box supplies. Teeny plastic soy sauce fish and pigs! Mayonnaise case (also good for ranch, ketchup, BBQ sauce, other thicker dipping sauces) shaped like wee monkey heads with small banana that fits into his mouth for a scoop (one with pink bow for Mimi, no bow for Asher)! Pirate muffin papers for separating foods that should not be mixed! Plastic animal head skewers for making teeny fruit shish kebabs! Elephant egg molds! Hello Kitty onigiri molds!

The list goes on, haha.

I started bentoing for the kids last year and they love it, and it is a lot of fun for me, too. Daiso is a great place for cheap bento goodies, so I stocked up a bit on that stuff, too.

I still have to do the clothes shopping thing, though. And get the supplies for the traditional Get the Hell Back to School cake we have for breakfast on the first day of school every year.

**** man. 9th September, I'm coming to yours.

Back in my day a good cigar box was cool. (1st, 2nd and 3rd grade)

The get to hell Back to school cake is an awesome idea! Wish I'd have thought of that!

Haha. Come on over, I will feed you cake.

If my oven gets fixed in time, that is. I may be forced to go buy a stupid cake from the grocery store and scribble on it with icing instead. Argh.

:D It's a good way to give the little jackals a special treat and celebrate the fact that they will be gone for many hours during the day again. Asher usually points out that the first day of school is not something to celebrate, but I just tell him, "Not for YOU, maybe..."

My faves are...
 

any that I don't have to buy....Hehehehehe!!! I hated school when I was younger, but I love this time of year just to hear the whining begin coming from the youngsters. :D

I'd love to get creative buying supplies, but other than pencils, the 'school supplies' list my son gets each year leaves nothing to the imagination. 'Plain covered color single subject notebooks, Plain pencil box, one color plastic folders'......blah! At least this year, I could pick out whatever size crayon box I wanted! I picked 64 colors!:woohoo:

It is during this time of year when I am glad to be done with school for good. :lol: We were always done with school for the summer (as was most schools in this area) around the middle of June and I swear it wasn't a few weeks later in the beginning of July I'd see commercials for "it's back to school time blah blah'' and signs in stores and whatnot. WTF? We just got the hell out of there and already the back to school crap started. You could imagine the choice words I had when I saw those bastard commercials & signs. :mad: I think though if I had cake on my first day back I would have been a little happier. :D

Being in college, I just grab a bunch of notebooks and folders, but for the odd-day recitations for some classes (this fall, it's gonna be eco), I get a cheap notebook with some silly print on it (I say you should have a little fun in life, and I don't remember this semester's, but last semester, it was Iron Man). Hell, I don't even have to go shopping for writing mechanisms, I just take 'em from the people giving 'em out for free ("I don't wanna open an account with Bank of America, I already have Chase, but can I take this pen?").

Elementary school, however, is a different story. Having attended in the 90's, I recall Lisa Frak being very big (it's still around these days?) , but my favorite school supply would have had to have been the crayons. I was a firm advocate of Crayola (let's admit it: Roseart and all those other brands are crap when it came to coloring) and I had to get at least a 64 box. Hell, I think I had 120 a few times, with all those smelly ones and whatnot.

EDIT: However, one thing I am happy about with school supplies and college is the fact that I don't need to get all this extra crap I'll never use. For example, when I was a high-school sophmore, my chem teacher wanted us to get, of all things, a composition notebook (and I will forever associate those with elementary school and killing myself with spelling and writing in script, and you can see how well those turned out :lol:). And in the 5th grade my teacher wanted, get this, like 5 different specifically colored folders with like 4 of each. That was one thing I could never fathom, and we never used 'em.

trapper keepers :laugh: man that is a blast from the past~ i remember when they just came out~ if you didn't have one in school, well you basically sucked~ i remember begging my granny to get me one of them & when she did, a bright- shiny red one, i thought i was the shiz!!!~ they made fun of them on 'south park' & my son didn't believe me that they really existed at one time~ we did an ebay search & walla, not only did they have the new & improved trapper keeper, but the old original ones too, some never used~ i about died~

i loved getting new school supplies when i was a kid & am getting jazzed at taking my son to get some in the next few weeks~ he has been home schooled for the past 3 years, but is going back to public school for 6th grade~ the thing that sucked tho when i was young, is that my mom worked for blue cross & blue shield for like a gazillion years~ she would get the majority of my brother & I 's supplies from her wrk~ there just wasn't anything special about a new notebook sporting her wrk logo, i used to save some of my allowance just to go to the school store so i could get just plain colored stuff:laugh:~

I looked forward to the first day of School in the same way Hohan looks forward to starting her Jail sentence today.

This. I still love me a new box of Crayola crayons, even I don't use them. Kids that had Roseart clearly were hated by their parents.

It's that time of summer!! I'm online now just squee-ing over notebooks and pens and the EFFING CUTEST PENCIL CASES!! I'm thinking a different notebook for each subject with a different design for each rather than just one big one.

Just got my bag offline!!
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OMG, Lisa Frank. I had tons of her stuff. .. especially anything with a unicorn on it. I went through a big unicorn phase when I was about 9, which was probably just an offshoot of my My Little Pony obsession. I also talked my mom into getting me as much Hello Kitty and My Melody stuff as possible when I was in early elementary school.

I remember being really into whatever my lunchbox was for the year....My Little Pony, fuchsia pink cooler thing, etc.