Teachers - bulletin board decorating

[niccig]

So I'm not crafty at all. I tried to cover my bulletin board today with fadeless paper. How do you get it straight? I had a difficult time, so I must be doing something wrong? How do you attach things to bulletin board? Staples? Some other tape? I want to keep same bulletin board for a couple years, but I have to take down the posters at end of year, except for the border and and the paper. Any other tricks?

Thanks

[Green_Tea]

I just did this today. My bulletin boards are HUGE so I feel your pain! I measured the height of the board and then rolled the paper out on the floor to cut it. I used a yard stick. Then I lined the short edge up with the top of the board and stapled it. I smoothed it down and stapled along the way. I repeat this process until the entire board is covered. I find it easiest to hang in vertical strips rather than horizontally. The top doesn't need to be perfectly straight if you have a border along the edge - it will hide slight gaps along the edges. I used staples to attach student work or posters. They come out easily with a staple remover.

Hope this helps!

[lurksalot]

I recommend painting the board. It won't fade and there aren't any pin or staple holes. The fire dept came to our school this past spring and told everyone that they can only have one layer of paper on their bulletin boards and their butcher paper counts a ONE layer. Holy cow, you should have heard the comments when he left....but...they decided to try painting their boards and now everyone seems to be doing it.

[PZMommy]

I buy the fadeless paper. I start at the left edge, and line it up and staple the edge. Then I unroll it and staple as I go. When I get to the other end, I just cut down the edge of the board. My paper is about an inch and a half taller than my board, so then I go through and just slide my scissors (or an exacto knife) along that edge to trim off the excess. Then I staple my boarders on. I used to change out my boarders through out the year, but that got to be too much. I find boarders I don't mind looking at all year, and just keep them up. If we aren't changing rooms, we can keep our paper and boarders up over the summer. I use push pins to attach student work. It makes it easier to fix when I staple them crooked. lol

lurksalot, we have a strict fire marshall, but at least we can have the background and student work on our boards. I actually think we'd get in more trouble if we painted the boards, unless we used district supplied paint.

[niccig]

Thanks all. My school had rolls of fadeless paper and I bought a border that will work with it. I'll try push pins, as I couldn't staple my posters straight last year. One was more crooked then the rest and it drove me nuts all year. I'm in denial about all the work I have this year so I'm fixing my room up. I took over 1/2 a classroom that was used mostly for storage, so this year I'm making it look nice.

[nfowife]

I used to use fabric instead of paper. Doesn't show holes of you take up and put down papers. Cheapy patterned fabric at Joanns for half off.

[bw52]

Fabric is my favorite if you intend to keep it up there for a long time.

And having another person to help you hang it--fabric or paper--makes it much easier!

I always used staples.

[klwa]

My mom used to use fabric or cheap gift wrap instead of the fadeless paper. The gift wrap for when she wanted to change it out seasonally, the fabric for when she wanted it for longer.

[PZMommy]

My school doesn't allow any fabric on the walls and this includes the boards. They say it is a fire hazard???

[Cam&Clay]

My school doesn't allow any fabric on the walls and this includes the boards. They say it is a fire hazard???

Our fire marshalls do not allow fabric anymore. There was a time where we could treat the fabric with flame retardant stuff, but then you had to submit a scrap of the treated fabric so they could test it to make sure it was indeed treated. It was a huge pain, so we mostly stopped using fabric.

I use fadeless and cut and staple as I go. Luckily, the past few years, I have only had one small board in the library, and my parent volunteers like to surprise me by doing it for me. Last year, it was a Minions theme (There are a minion reasons to love the library) and the year before was Starbucks (I love reading a latte!).