DIY: How to Paint a Personalized Sign for Your Classroom or Favorite Teacher!

My niece recently asked me to paint a personalized canvas for her brand new classroom. She sent me some ideas from Pinterest that all looked easy enough so I tackled the project in an afternoon. It was so fun and easy! So I decided to paint a couple more for some super amazing folks...and film the process in case you'd like to do the same! They make for great gifts and seriously took no time at all. Here's the process:

The key: EMBRACE THE 'MESS-UPS'! And enjoy the process!

These canvases were about 18" X 12". If you check your local craft store, they often sell canvases of these sizes in a pack of two. 

My niece had requested a pastel palette and I loved the way it looked! I found that you can buy a palette of pastel acrylic paints at the craft store too. 

I preferred using a flat brush for the wide lines and a fine point for the details. Other than the canvas, the paint and brushes...this was an inexpensive gift! 

I was super pleased with how they turned out! And I think the recipients were too :)

I really think these could be personalized too for the person you are creating the canvas for! Art teachers for sure could have a palette in that upper righthand corner!

Not to mention, painting these meant that I was able to take my Creative Vitamins! I got to relax and enjoy creating just for the sake of doing so. 

Read more »

DIY: Super Simple Way to Paint Furniture!

 Last week I got a wild hair and decided that I needed to paint not one piece of furniture for my art room but three. And the process was so stinkin' easy, I thought I'd share it with you. Here you go:

A while back, I created a couple of murals for my art room and I didn't end up using all of the paint. I kept the paint and I'm so glad I did (I mean, what else was I gonna do with it?! I'm an art teacher AND a hoarder, HELLOOO!). Now I can make sure that, despite all of the different crazy patterns, everything kinda-sorta goes together because the colors tie it all. Says me. 

 All this madness actually started with a cabinet that I'm now calling Sketchbook Town (see below). But then on Friday afternoon, I just couldn't stop! I repainted my easel that had become sad and ugly with just blobs of the cold colors. Thinking I'll paint the reverse with the warm colors. That cabinet was a score from the teacher's lounge. The space below that table was just begging for something to fill it AND this little cabinet does the trick. It currently holds my dry erase boards, markers and erasers as we use those everyday...but they were taking up too much space on the table above. We call that The Store and it's the supply-gathering area. I try to keep it clear but I also have a terrible habit of cluttering it up. So getting those dry erase supplies outta the way will (hopefully) help. 

 So all this painting mayhem started when I decided I wanted to create Sketchbook Town. I'll be filling you in on this later (so much to share!! I'm excited). But here is a sneak peak. Oh yeah, I also painted three paintings in this dotted style. I think I actually caught Dot Day fever, y'all! 

 Here's my sketchbook cabinet. If you are wondering where all this furniture came from, lemme just tell you, in your school there is ALWAYS furniture that folks are wanting to part with. Ours is kept in a spare classroom or sometimes it's dropped in the teacher's lounge. Also...if you need furniture, be sure and stop by that local thrift store. You never know what thrift you are gonna score. 

 These are the murals I painted in my art room a couple years ago. You can read more about this mural here...

And the mural that started it all! You can read about that one here.

Okay...I seriously had a million things to do last week...but sometimes, you just need to slap some paint on stuff. Trust me. Carve out some time and do it. You won't regret it. 

Read more »

How to Decorate an Art Room: Line and Color Wall!

If you've been hanging around this here blog lately, then you know I've been sharing quite a few redecorating of the art room posts. For many of these art room flips, I have the Fire Marshall to thank. What previously was in this space were some super fun things hanging from the ceiling. You know, the usual art teacherin' decor: a disco ball and extra large plastic crayon piggy banks. Need I say more? The FM was not a fan because, let's be honest, FMs hate all things happy, colorful, fun and ceiling-dangily. Yeah, yeah, their fun-zapping ways save us from a fiery doom but whatever. They cramp our art teacherin' style.

Or do they? It was after I removed, let's be honest, the clutter, that I started to think of what I could use this space for. I remembered that my buddy Michelle created a large scale visual of lines for her students in her art room. With that in mind, I decided to create my own version in my art room. Allow me to share my (big pain in the behind to create) Line and Color Wall...hugs to Michelle for the inspiration! 

Supplies:

* Picket Fence Posts Y'all know I have issues with going in to the Paint All The Wood Thingies aisle in the local craft joint. I found these guys there and I'm assuming they were supposed to be fence posts? Whatever, to me, they looked liked pencils so I picked up seven. With my teacher discount, of course.

* Duct Tape I didn't want to paint my wall because 1. I didn't want to ask permission to do so and 2. I didn't want to even attempt to paint over that lumpy bumpy brick. Did you know that they make thin duct tape?! It's the best thing ever when you are creating a line and color wall, y'all!

 Now, when coming up with my lines, my biggest problem was space. There's not a ton of space above my white board. So I had to keep that in mind when dreaming up what lines to showcase.

With that in mind, I went with the following: bouncing, zigzag, thick, thin, dotted/dashed, curvy and parallel lines. Not even gonna lie: this was NOT my favorite art room decor project because it took forever...but it is my new favorite thing to look at in my art room!

AND it's totally not coming down. Sorry not sorry, sweet FM! Okay, let's be honest, if they ask, I'll take it down. But words will be spoken. Most unpleasant ones, at that. 

 Okay, so. I've covered Lines, Color Order, a Color Wheel in my art room with my new decor...but now I'm perplexed: I want to showcase shape an form. How so? Love to hear your ideas! 

Read more »

In the Art Room: Welcome to Japan!

 So, can you guess where we'll be traveling this year in the art room? If you just guessed "Chexico!" like one of my students today, then, I hate to tell ya this, but you are incorrecto. As they say in Chexico.

However, if you guessed, "We are going to Japanese!" like another student of mine, then, yay! You're getting warmer! We'll be studying the art, culture and people of Asia this year. I decided to go with a Japanese theme for my room decor.

 That being said, I really had no clue just how I was gonna transform these windows into the Land of the Rising Sun. So I uprooted a stash of Hokusai prints (my inspiration for this post) and slowly started knocking it out.

 The kids are always fascinated by the window paintings. My favorite question of all time: "Does the principal know you painted the windows?" My other favorite question comes every year from my custodian buddy who will walk in, stop dead in his tracks and say, "Did you paint that?!" Seriously, every year. When I tell him, "yes!" I always get an "all by yourself?!"

 It took me a couple of hours to wash Paris off my windows and take down all of the art work. Here's what my blank canvas, so to speak, looks like. It's a lovely view but it can be very distracting to the kids when we have wacky weather, friends on the playground or sun shining in our eyes and burning out our retinas.

I began working on this during summer for just a few hours a day. On the morning I came back to this, I absolutely hated it. The colors seemed too bright and garish to me. But I've got a rule about art-making that comes courtesy of Tim Gunn: Make it work.

 At the end of that day, I was getting a little closer to being finished and a little happier with the result. I figured whatever I didn't like I could stick my giant tree in front of. Cuz that's Tim Gunn's other no-as-popular credo: Big a** trees hide big a** mistakes.

 This here's about the time I threw down my brushes, wiped my brow and heard that oh-so-familiar, "Did you paint that?!" And all that was left was adding the tree.

 Now this tree came in at least a half dozen parts from the ever-so-lovely Anthropologie store in downtown Franklin, Tennessee. Wasn't that so super awesome of them to donate it to the art room? I thought so. I had some of my favorite buddies help me put the thing together...and we almost did it. However, my skillz with drillz are seriously lacking. The thing ended up with enough screws sticking out of it that it closely resembled a cactus. When I asked the principal if all the kids had their tetanus shots because, if not, we might have a prob with all those rusty bits sticking out, she kinda freaked a little. I'm not gonna lie. I was woe-is-meing to a wonderful parent at our school who then proceeded to volunteer her awesome husband to come and fix Big Bad Tetanus Tree. And all was happy in Chexico. Er, Japanese. Japan! Whatever.

And while I totally love my Japanese set up, I gotta tell you, I'm gonna miss Paris a bit. In fact, I had one or two students today tell me that they'll miss seeing the hot air balloons and the Eiffel Tower.

 The year before we studied Europe, we covered Egypt. At this time, I was only painting the right bank of windows. Before I went all crazy town and painted the entire ding-dong thing.

Regardless, I'm super stoked for the new school year. This is what I wore today as our introduction to the art room and a tiny glimpse into our year in Asia. Although it appears we might have to have a wee chat about cultural acceptance as I heard this from one of my students today:

"Mrs. Stephens," with a look from head to toe, a sigh and an eye roll, "you look ridiculous. As usual."

Seriously? I get no respect! 

Sayonara, dudes!

Read more »

In the Art Room: Let's Go to Paris!

Having haphazardly cleaned my art room at the end of the school year, I managed to hide all of the paintbrushes from myself. Seriously, I've no clue where they are. So this here window mural was painted in sponges, paint rollers, fingers, window paint markers and a sumi brush. 

Each year, students, their parents and faculty friends ask me the same question: "So, where are we going this year?!" I began this tradition of decorating my room around our theme of study many years ago. I'd say I do it (in my best Sally Struther's voice) for the children, but the truth of the matter is, I just love doing it. The bonus is they love it as well.

I'm so excited for them to see this year's theme: Traveling Europe. As you might have guessed, we are starting off our journey in Paris! Which is just a pinch different from where we traveled to last year...

This time last year, we were heading back in time to Ancient Egypt. I painted the windows, sponge stamped those dollar straw mats and created the batiks in the window and behind my chair. All of that's now packed away. Somewhere. Possibly with some paint brushes. 

I did learn something having lost my brushes: painting goes a whole lot quicker if you use a paint roller to block in the background. Another lesson learned: beware of paint-roller-splatter. Especially when wearing vintage, argh!

I began with a really rough sketch of how I was hoping the windows would turn out. The left bank of windows proved to be the easier side as I had a clear idea of where I was going: Eiffel Tower, some hot air balloons, a background of buildings and some flowers in the foreground. Not quite three hours later, done.

Remember I told you I was on a poodle kick?

This side proved to be a pinch more difficult. I knew I wanted a street, a bike and a poodle. I created an extremely rough sketch on my window with a washable marker and just went for it. Thankfully, I had plenty of photos from our trip to Epot and their version of Paris to help me out.

I love Epcot. There is nothing to do there but shop and eat. Which go together like hot fudge and ice cream, says moi.

Knowing that I'd be creating my room around this European theme, hubs and I went to Epcot on our trip to Disney at the very beginning of the summer. Can you spot my inspiration in these photos? Hello there, street lamp.

Another thing I love about Epcot is that they hire folks from the actual counties to work in that portion of the park. Or they manage to find people with really great accents. Either way, it's very cool.

Table for two? Oui, s'il vous plaît.

In between and above my windows are concrete blocks. Not exactly the Euro-vibe I was going for. In my search for paint brushes, I found that I had a mountain of French painting reproductions. So, I set about mounting them and creating some faux advertisement posters. I was inspired by the post of adverts I saw at Epcot...

From Epcot's Paris.

FeeFee and her suitcase, ready to travel the world.

Because my art room used to be a library, I have an enormous book shelf beside my windows. Normally I fill the shelves with treasures from the countries we are studying, but my stash of European souvenirs is pretty slim. So I scooped up this old plastic Samsonite suitcase at the thrift store and covered it with some royalty -free travel images I printed off the interweb.

Which was inspired by this display at Epcot.

My new favorite spot in the room. Now where is that waiter with my cappuccino? I hope he's not buried under paint brushes some where -- I'll never get my coffee!

So one area of my room complete! Notice I'm not sharing with you photos of the rest of the place...in my mad hunt for paintbrushes, I opened every cabinet and pulled out every drawer. It looks like a poltergeist swept through my room.

Au revoir, Jes! Do you remember our school mascot? He's traveled to Germany and the Netherlands and this week he was shipped out to France! I cannot wait to share photos of his travels with the kids.

It's such a relief to have one portion of my room complete. Now I'm just down to moving tables, prepping first week supplies and hanging up my class rules. I've already started to rewrite my rules:

Rule #1: Find Mrs. Stephens paint brushes.

Rule #2: What? Have you found my brushes yet? Then you need to revisit Rule #1, kid.

(Thanks for dropping by!...Cassie)

Read more »