My sister in law, Blair, is a middle school teacher and has been working had to prep her classroom for the coming school year. She is back to share with us some of her most recent DIY classroom ideas! Enjoy!
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It’s such a privilege to have Katie ask me to write a guest entry
again. Since she is the Queen of Crafting in our family, it’s always nice to
have a thumbs up from her after a DIY project. Today I have 2 crafts to share
with you that are great for the workplace.
This year will be my 3rd year teaching and my 2nd year teaching the same
subject at the same school. Last year my teacher workdays before the start of
the school year consisted of planning with my partner 6th grade teacher and
putting up posters/organizing my room. Now that I have a full year of teaching
the same subject under my belt I’ve really been looking up ideas on Pinterest
to make my classroom more “Me”.
The first DIY I have to show you was a file cabinet revamp. I
really wanted to work on documentation this school year. Any teacher will tell
you the three rules of teaching are “document, document, document”.
For this project you will need:
File cabinet revamp
Materials:
File cabinet
Krylon Spray paint
Scrapbook paper
Mod Podge
Paint brush to brush on the Mod Podge
Clear Acrylic Sealer
I wanted a file cabinet but knew I would hate how ugly they are
so I decided to paint it with Krylon for metals. I picked out a fun purple and
went to town. The best advice I can give with spray paint is hold it 7 inches
away from your object and paint many layers. Don’t try to cover it in one
spray. Also, start spraying off of the object and continue in a straight line,
not stopping the spray until AFTER you have passed the object. This will help
eliminate any shiny spots or uneven places.
I had wanted to paint a chevron pattern on it like Katie’s
buffet table but after taping and painting, I removed the painters tape and watched
the spray paint come up with it. I was not excited. So I moved on to plan #2. I
decided to try my hand at Mod Podge. I’ve only done it one other time so I was
anxious to see how well this would do. Basically you just put a thin layer of
Mod Podge on the top of the cabinet and gently lay down your paper, smoothing
as you go. If there are bubbles don’t worry too much now. Once I covered the
entire top with scrapbook paper I waited. I’m not patient so this was
excruciating. Once dry I covered the entire top with another THIN layer of Mod
Podge. WARNING: THIS WILL MAKE BUBBLES BUT IT’S OK! We’ll fix it later. Once
this is completely dry (10 minutes) I sprayed the clear acrylic sealer on top.
This will make it water proof and stop it from ever rising up.
Once the sealer was dry, I began pushing on the bubbles and they
immediately flattened out. Don’t rub them, just push down and it will stick. I
used leftover scapbook paper to make the little labels. I think it turned out
really well and I can’t wait to put it in my room.
Before
After
The second craft I created wast a Post-It picture frame I found
on
Pinterest. It’s very self
explanatory and here’s what you’ll need:
Materials:
Clear picture frame ($1.00 at walmart)
Super Sticky Post-it ($1.00 for fun colors at walmart)
Ribbon ($3.00 for 5 yards)
Scrapbook paper (.50 for one page)
Pen Pal ($2.88 for 3 at Walmart
Glue gun
Start with your clear frame. I removed the piece of paper that
they put in the frame and used it as my template. I cut 2 pieces of scrapbook
paper for each frame because I wanted the pattern on both the front and the
back since you can see it from either side. Next I tied my ribbon and put a dab
of hot glue behind the
knot in the bow just to ensure that it wouldn’t move. Then I peeled the back
off of the Post-It notes and the Pen Pal and stuck them where I wanted them and
VIOLA! I will definitely be making these for teacher gifts in the future! They
took 10 minutes to make 3 and they only cost me about $3 each!
