The Brown Bag Teacher

Teach the Children. Love the Children. Change the World.

Classroom Organization: Coffee Cans & Picture Frames

Happy Monday, friends.

Today has been a day of spackle and Kilz Wall Paint and spray paint. I hope your Monday has been as productive as mine. Today I’m sharing ways to turn ordinary things into eye-catching pieces for your classroom!
Last week I scavenged the attic for unused frames and then, wiped them all down with a wet rag (so the spray paint sticks.) I placed cardboard under the frames, so the grass would not attack the wet paint. You could also use a plastic trash bag, but it might blow in the wind and attack your wet frame – boo.

Then, I acquired flat spray paint from Walmart (I did not want the frames to shine) and gave the frames 3 coats of paint. The shiny inside of the larger frame was being difficult.

Lastly, I put Pinterest to work and found some quotes to put in the frames. I printed them and voila! The two lengths of my room are yellow portioned walls. They are not the accordion style walls, so I will be able to easily hang the pictures with small finishing nails!

The next project I worked on was Project Caffeine. Since I do not drink coffee, it involved my Mom drinking inordinate amounts of caffeine in a week. I joke. I have always know I wanted to be a teacher, so these are just of the few of the coffee cans Mom has been saving for the past 4 years.

First, I removed the outer plastic of the cans and washed all the remaining grounds out. Then, I gave the cans 2.5ish coats of flat black spray paint (again, I did not want them to shine).

Initially, I had planned on leaving the insides of the cans silver, BUT since I did not tape the inside of the cans, overspray defiled the inside of the cans. It looked not-so-hot to have random speckles of paint on the inside, so later I ended up giving the insides of the cans a coat of paint.

Now, the fun part. The wall partitions I mentioned earlier are yellow. Yes, yellow. And, my lockers? Red. Do I live in a McDonalds? Yes. Yes, I do.

Initially, it was terrible. Now, I am embracing the yellow, ignoring the red, and supplementing with black. I found this snazzy yellow ribbon at Michaels {for 25% off} and whipped up some labels with Kimberly Geswein’s Second Chances font {adorable}!

Using spray adhesive, I attached the ribbon and the labels. Again, voila! It was easy peasy.

Well friends, I hope I have given you some ideas or at minimum distracted you from doing a household chore. I need to let my computer rest or it’s going to die…for realz. Yesterday, I backed up my pictures/clip art for the first time in 18 months, and it took 12 HOURS. I started backing up my documents at 2 PM and IT’S STILL GOING. I fully expect my computer to burst into flames by midnight…

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    • Kate says

      Thanks, friend. I do have the option of painting the lockers, but I really don't think it's the best idea….especially this year. The frames are actually just a shape I inserted from Powerpoint (I have no idea what the shape is called!). I inserted two of the shape, cleared out the middle, and did a black line color on one and yellow on the other! 🙂

      Reply

  4. D. Frideley says

    I think if you go with yellow & black & maybe some grey (to tone down the red) then the red lockers will be more like the red door on the front of a house and accent rather than clash.

    I like the yellow it's cheery!

    Deniece

    Reply

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