A "Faux Whiteboard" Makeover

I'm keeping this one short and sweet because I spent HOURS working in my room today, and quite frankly, I'm pooped. 

But I still have a bunch of printing, laminating, and creating that needs to be done. 

Sigh.

First off, I'm participating in the big TpT sale this weekend, so all of my resources will be 20% off AND you can use the code BTS12 to take off a grand total of 28% off of your order. Not too shabby.

If you click that graphic, it'll take you to my store.

Don't forget: August 12-13.

Be there.

In other news, I've been furiously working away in my classroom. I don't know how some of you guys get everything ready in a couple of days.

Really, I don't.

I've been spending hours in there several days a week, for probably the last month, and I STILL have a ton to do.

Maybe I've tried to bite off more than I can chew. Definitely wouldn't be the first time.

I did finally finish up (at least for now) one of my "bulletin boards." Here's the thing. Back in the day when the school started replacing chalkboards, they installed one real whiteboard and then used a slick panel board that's probably meant for shower walls for the other boards. But this faux whiteboard doesn't erase well. At all. And so now it looks gross. Plus it has Velcro dots stuck on there from a previous management system, and I cannot get them off to save my life.

And I have an uncontrollable need for things to look pretty, remember?

So here's what it looked like before. See what I mean? Nastiness. (Ignore the pretty blue paper, this was an 'in progress' picture because I forgot to take a 'before')

My original plan was to use colored plastic tablecloths from the dollar store. Turns out, they're super thin. You could see ALL of those icky Velcro dots. And every scratch, scuff, and Expo marker that would never come off.

I found that gorgeous blue paper at the teacher store and bought 3 rolls (Bonus: it's fade proof!), and finally found a purpose for those rolls of zebra duct tape that I bought a few weeks ago.

First I measured and cut the paper (it's not very wide), and then stuck it to the board with masking tape. After I got the panels positioned, I took the masking tape off of the sides and covered the seams with duct tape. 

After all of the vertical sides were covered, I went back and took the masking tape off of the top and bottom and covered them with duct tape. (I'm not the most patient person, so this project was trying for me.)

Since I also bought a bunch of ribbon at Walmart a month ago...and had no purpose for it...I decided to  hot glue it to the tape to spruce up the vertical dividers.

I could have SWORN that I had a picture with the ribbon, but I can't find it.

Moving on...

I also needed a really good way to display my ADORABLE CSS posters that I got from Kate at To The Square Inch. (They're seriously awesome!)

I wanted to display them in a way that would be super easy to change out, but still look good.

Enter my new best friend, Mr. Hot Glue Gun.

Seriously, this guy is AWESOME.

I decided to use a binder clip and a clipboard for each set of standards, so I could display the cluster (binder clip) and the standard (clipboard). I toyed around with the idea of using my X-Acto knife to cut a hole in the paper and then use a 3M hook, but I figured that I would royally screw up my beautiful paper.

So I very hesitantly, very cautiously, heated up the hot glue gun.

By golly, it stuck!

I did the binder clip first, you know, since it's small and therefore more likely to stick.

And it stuck.

Then I slathered the back of a clipboard with the molten hot glue and pressed it to the wall.

And held it for a long time because I was sure that it was coming down.

But no...it stayed. 

And it looks awesome!

I even glued a pocked chart up there!

After adding some letters that I punched out (I don't think I've ever bought the prepackaged punch out bulletin board letters before-now I know why. I hate punching them out. It took about 2 hours to punch out all of those letters!), that once UGLY board now looks FABULOUS!

I'm in love.

The upper left hand poster will be a cluster poster, too. I just didn't have another one printed off , and I really wanted a complete-ish picture.

I'm hoping to get some pictures of the completed room before the kids come back, but now I'm hearing that our rooms won't be painted until school starts. Such a conundrum. Do I take pictures before the kids come and have the room look great but the walls look ugly? Or do I wait until the room is painted and take my chances with the damage caused by the kids?

Sigh.