DIY bulletin boards, 99 and 100

This is my second week linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for a Monday Made It! This is something way out of the ordinary, or even very artsy or DIY. However, I am very happy with the end result. My new classroom has TONS more wall space than my first grade classroom. And they are all staple friendly! I wanted to take advantage of it all, but wanted to have designated spaces (like bulletin boards) instead of just throwing a bunch of poster and anchor charts on the walls. I have had three big empty walls that I wanted to create bulletins boards for things like Writer’s Workshop Board, Math Wall, Data/Focus Wall, etc.

To start, I wanted to make sure my new do-it-yourself bulletin boards were perfect squares or rectangles. I hate when things on the walls are not straight. Crooked lines seem to stare at me all day until I fix them. So I used yarn and push pins to map out how big and where exactly they would go on the walls. I had to measure a bit and do a little bit of adjusting before they were perfect.

Then I covered the insides of the big, yarn rectangles with colored butcher paper. I did three different colors that go with my color scheme. I didn’t worry about the edges being perfect because I bought some thick ribbon for the borders. I used the yarn as my outside edge when putting the ribbon up. This way everything would still measure up perfectly and be nice and straight.

This was my first time using ribbon instead of the border from teacher stores. I was so happy with it. It was fast to put up. I only needed to cut 4 pieces for each board (instead of trying to line up those precut pieces with scalloped edges!) And I love the way they stand out when you come in the room.

Here’s a sneak peak of my room. This was taken around 10:00 am…check out the storm we were in the middle of!

Before I go, I know this is late, but last Monday was the beginning of United Art and Education’s Teacher Appreciation Sale. Did anyone else wait in line to be one of the first 100 people to receive a mystery envelope? My husband and I got there 30 minutes early, and watched about 5 people cut in line (I wanted to yell “She cutted!”) We were pretty sure we had no chance, but somehow Clint was #99, and I was #100! We couldn’t believe it! AND we got the two top prizes- $10 and $20 gift certificates. I am never lucky, so this was pretty cool.