Written by: Hannah Davis

Everyone knows that you, as a broke student, are too broke to spend money on useless school supplies like pens, and notebooks (scoff!). So please make use of these helpful and straightforward tips for finding and making your own school supplies for free.

Harry Potter-Style Blood Pen

This is a fun DIY project ensuring you a free pen for the entire semester. Simply find an old pen either in the garbage or on the floor somewhere. You’ll want to cast a spell on the writing utensil, so that whenever you write, the pen magically uses the blood from your arm as ink.

Try a spell like: “ink-o, arm-o,” or “blood-iosis, ink-iosis,” or “Help! School is putting me into horrible debt and forcing me to turn to desperate measures to save money.” Any of these spells will work just fine! When successful, your blood will magically become the ink for the pen whenever you write with it, and now all your notes will be written in a beautiful crimson colour, Harry Potter-style.

Raccoon minions

For this DIY project, you’ll need to become the leader of a gang of raccoons, who you will then train to hustle unsuspecting students for their school supplies. Teach the raccoons to say things like, “Hey, you, gimme all your school supplies,” and equip them with small messenger bags where they can store their stolen pens, notebooks, and the like.

To make them even more intimidating, give all your hench-raccoons tiny leather jackets. They will return to you, their leader, at the end of every night with bags full of academic supplies, and you will never have to buy another binder or pencil ever again.

Giant net

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Fashion yourself a huge wearable net, which will circle around your feet and catch falling school supplies, among other things.

Designed like a hoop skirt from the Victorian era, your net skirt will be the envy of the university, as it allows you to discreetly and efficiently catch falling school supplies, as well as scoop them off the floor and carry them with you fashionably and effectively.  

Deceit

For this DIY craft, all you need to do is deceive the public by tricking them into donating school supplies to your cause.

Pretend to be an entire elementary school who is in need of supplies. Bring a donation bin up to the university, and leave it somewhere where there is high-volume pedestrian traffic. Write a heartfelt letter about your school and post it to the bin. To really seal the deal, draw about 40 pictures to decorate the bin with, and make sure each illustration looks like they were drawn by a different child.

The guilt at this point may begin creep its icy fingers up your back, but don’t worry: you won’t feel bad about lying to the public once you’re rolling in school supplies and savings.