A little roundup for the folks asking:

Ceiling light fixture Bookcase lighting Starry night projector (I got all three above as returns on Amazon's warehouse tab, always check there for discounted stuff!) Flooring (+ standard black grout) Rug (highly recommend waiting for a sale because it's PRICEY) Couch--FB marketplace but they said it was Article Bookcases--custom/DIY

Looks like Michael beat me to the punch with a post and a book Ugh! Still need to get to my P.O. Box for our "first" book. That's what you get when you have ADHD I guess. My friends and I chipped in to have special inlets and stickers made for this ambitious project. That does not mean that you cannot get in on the action yourselves! Here is a DIY you can try at home to send your dusty treasures out into the world:

Step 1: Gather your supplies.

All you really need is an envelope, a flash card, a pen, some glue, and some scissors. Before we begin make sure to seal your envelope!

Step 2: Cut the envelope.

This will act as the "inlet" inside of the book.

Step 3: Prepare your flash card.

Okay, so maybe I forgot a tool: a ruler. I just used the edge of the book. So now you want to turn the flash card into a "lending card". Make sure to have the "author", "title" and "location". Maybe give us a shout-out and write down our URL?

Step 4: Glue the back of the inlet.

Step 5: Place the inlet, with the card, firmly inside the book cover.

We love books. With 350+ it was chaos, we needed a proper system. Something easy for us to clean and search for particular books, but something also fun that parks the imagination while also helping us take responsibility.

Mom got library pocket and cards on Amazon and tediously put one on every book.

She developed a sticker system. Every book got a sticker related to a section, which was taped over (also protecting the spine,) and a matching sticker taped on the back of the cards. Mom put velcro on a zip lock and stuck it to the wall beside the boxes for us to put our stamped or signed cards into when we check out the book.

Mom put stickers on the front of the totes so we know which sections are in each tote, and if we forget to put the card back in the book we can find it easily later on. We used file folders cut in half with the sticker taped on and a section named, with simple sections like animals and earth science and big section names like socio-emotional and religion/mythology.

We also found a cute little cash register (not pictured, floored somewhere🤣) with a scanner to use to check books out with. Mom also made us library cards for us to switch from home to library when we're reading, just to reinforce cleaning up when we're finished. She also made a helper chart (currently on the calendar until mom finds it a home) with different jobs including library helper, who helps look through sections to make sure they're orderly and reminds people when they leave out books/helps collect them when it's time. We have popsicle sticks in our brain breaks jar with our names on them and we pick jobs as our names are drawn. Such a fun simple system! Also please ignore the chaos on the actual bookshelf, mom didn't get around to facing our books there yet but it was dinner time🤣🤣

Maker Monday: Painting on the Library, Space Edition

Are you sitting down? Okay… I painted on a library book. But, it wasn’t my fault; I blame Susan Schwake. My teens and I were flipping through her book, Art Lab for Kids, and we fell in love with gelatin printing. Because I was so enamored with the idea, I picked up gelatin on our Saturday grocery adventure after convincing hubby that conducting STEAM experiments in our kitchen would be fun. I did…

Wow, so there are a lot more books than I had previously realized (and many that are not cataloged anywhere). So far the count's at 130, and there's a huge bookshelf near the front of our office that I'm going to go through on Sunday.

Then I need to go through our game cabinet, as the last inventory list is from 2008 (totally a weird discovery, by the way, as the girl who wrote it is kind of the boss of my boyfriend who works at a totally different gaming company)!