I have a new art room and I am so excited for the change!

Here is a link to my old classroom flashback post. 

I have created a new Instagram account in order to share all of my new high school stuff. It is a public account so please follow me @cjhs_art

​Now, I would like to give you a little tour of the room along with some links to some of the new items I picked up this summer. Some things I made totally new, like the shibori fabric, that I tie-dyed last spring. And lots of things were 'thrifted' from local places like the DAV, flea markets, and the Habitat for Humanity. 

In the past, I've had a painted desk, but this time I wanted something a little quicker than that. I used the good 'ole liquid starch hack. I simply held the hand-dyed fabric up and brushed liquid starch over it. I stretched it and it smoothed out and it dried on the metal desk. Simple as that. 

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 I had to pack up everything in my old room, move it home, pack it up again and move it to my new room. My husband helped me with one load from my old school home, but the rest of it, I physically moved and loaded up all by myself. 

I've tried to be picky about what to keep and what to retire. And in some cases, I just wanted some fresh new stuff.

​Once I had the fabric on the desk, I had it in my head that I wanted to go for a bohemian vibe.

Literally everyone on pinterest is either using rainbows or farmhouse to decorate their rooms, but with my beaded mona lisa curtain, new plants, and with the tie dye stuff, neither of those 'vibes' worked for me. 

​I created a moodboard to kind of narrow down what I liked....because my problem is that I am a maximalist, not a minimalist.

So I like LOTS of stuff. A moodboard is kind of like pinterest, but its a little different. 

My pinterest boards had everything I have ever liked for classroom/home/diy inspiration and I was able to cull in into one quick visual board. 

I've tried to provide links to as many of the products that I purchased new at the bottom of this post as possible. 

The lamp shade used to be plain white, I just put a little fabric on it to make it match. Simple makeover. I don't know if I will keep the paint pallet table here, since this is where my over head projector pulls down, but for now it hides a bit of the cord vomit. I'm not 100% happy with this area, I still feel like it looks cluttered, but some of this stuff I will use a lot so I'm still trying to figure out what to discard or pack up. 

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The canvas fabric cubes that I had on the shelves looked too cluttered so I recovered these and added a wood tag and a little macrame. I still think the shelves look cluttered but I have a lot of stuff....so I might still need to edit them a bit. ​Below, you can see the small book shelves before I painted them white. Also, there was an annoying orange extension cord for the overhead projector that I have since covered in conduit. I hate it when cords show! 

I'm still trying to decide if the framed fabric needs a quote added in vinyl or paint......

This is my most obvious 'boho' corner. The green chair was at a flea market in Springfield for $23 and the brown was I found at habitat for humanity for $8. They are not in perfect condition, but I always loved it when my teachers had real furniture in the classroom, even if it was a little 'used.' 

The wicker stool was at DAV and I paid like $10 for it. The wicker vase and plant are the only other things I bought in the above picture. I figure all of this stuff will be great for still life drawing so it was worth the investment. 

​Below, you can see the other plant that I bought and the two plant stands I purchased. 

For the first time in 10 years, I have a window!! 

My room has 3 office chairs. I still opted to bring this yellow chair from home because I love it and I don't have a desk at home that it works well with.....

This room also has an exterior door, which has been really nice for moving and unloading stuff. I can pull right up to the door and viola! Unload! This is the view from the exterior doorway. Pottery wheels! And lots of wire shelving for clay. 

These tapestries are so cool! I seriously could not decide which one to get...but this one was the first one that I fell in love with. I put a link at the bottom of this post to the one I got, but if you have a big blank wall space, you might look at some of the others. I hung it with velcro and hot glue, but I don't know if it will stay because it was the Dollar Tree velcro.....

I have had some sort of star or paper lantern in every classroom I've ever had. At first, I wasn't going to have anything hanging from the ceiling but I spray painted the BIG gold one (used to be pink and white), and I had the green one at home. The white one is from home, I just added a little blue paint to make it look sort of tie dyed and now I can't imagine this space without the suspended stars. 

This room really is big, with a couple of different areas. 

These mirrors were $5 walmart buys. They came white and I just used a little blue acrylic to make a design on the edges. The map bunting I made several years ago from an old atlas. 

The open storage you can see in the mirror here is still a work in progress. I put a bunch of stuff up in the top that I might try to put elsewhere....Mostly, this will be a place where we store portfolios and 'in-progress' work. We can work on LARGE projects because we have plenty of space!

This is the view from behind my desk. These panorama photos are a bit misleading so I made a 360 video. 

The room has two entrance doors, three closet doors and one exterior door. Above is the view from one of the doors. Below is the view from the other door. 

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I like that the room has two light switches, I can have half of the lights on at a time, I should've turned them all on for this photo (and taken this single chair down, oops). But above the cabinets is some dead space that I have decorated with some oversized art supplies. Some people like to use that space for storage.....and I might need to do that eventually, but for now, I'm going to try to keep it uncluttered and 'decorative'. 

The scissors are paper mache that I made with a student teacher several years ago. They have travelled to most of my art rooms. This year, I added the letters MAKE ART, which I painted in July, inspired by the artist Jen Stark. 

The prisma color box used to be a box of crayons, but I painted over it this year. The 'messy' watercolor box and the big crayola marker are new this year. 

I had a tendency to clutter up the area above my cabinets in the past, you can see the old crayon box, which is now a prismacolor box...I still have the paint jar, but it doesn't look right with the other new stuff so I took it down. The globes I left at my old school and I also left the manikins. 

I am so grateful to the last art teacher for leaving such well-labeled and organized art cabinets, so helpful!! Made my job this summer a lot easier. 

Today, (after I took this picture) the custodian offered to adjust all of the desks so they are the same height, which I think will help when sharing supplies. The desks are like mini drafting tables, but the mechanism inside is a little janky so they don't really work right anymore. 

As you can see it is a nice big room. In at least one of my classes, I will have more than one 'class' at the same time...so it will be nice to have several learning areas to utilize. My new schedule is block, so I will have 3 long classes and one long planning period each day. I am most excited about the new schedule and the window in my art room. 

School doesn't start for another week, so I have been working on lesson plans and syllabi and new emergency sub plans. It has been a busy summer with moving, changing to a new job and learning all the new ins and outs, but it is also really exciting and I am looking forward to all the changes!

Product Links:
Here is all the stuff I bought. 

Growth mindset Activities Bunting on TPT, posted above my board. I printed it on a color printer and laminated it. 

Maritime Wall Tapestry Wall art for only $15.91 !! They have the Great Wave and Starry Night, but this one just felt right. 

Cavallini Papers Color Wheel Vintage Style I sprung for the one on the wood rod...even thought it was way more expensive than the poster by itself. 

Green Click 34 ft LED Outdoor globe String Lights with Remote Control. I like the warm light ones, and I bought a color string for my porch at home. 

Darice Square Bevel Mirror For $5 each at Walmart. 

Llama ceramic planter. Mine was a gift!

Mint Lexington 3 Tier cart I bought this last year at Michaels. 
Lamp, and chairs and wicker table were thrifted. 

​Paint Palette Wood Table on clearance at Hobby Lobby. 

I dyed most of the fabric myself. Using the Jacquard Mini Indigo Tie Dye kit at Michaels. 

I found the Rag Rug at Ross for $10 so I though it was a good buy. 
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Joann Fabric had a bunch of Indigo Shibori Decor items like pillows at the start of summer. I went in at the end to see what was left and 70% off, but most was gone, I got the idea to frame a piece of dyed fabric.... and I did buy about 3 yards of a shibori looking design, but I learned that it is so much cheaper to dye your own. The cut I got was like $20 and I used a coupon to make it a little cheaper. They have more fabric, if I need it in a pinch. 

Michaels has a bunch of 'indigo' accessories: duct tape, washi tape, ribbon, garland/banners, but most of it was not on sale and I could not justify spending money on it at full price. Now I need at least 3 more rolls so I will be going back. I couldn't find a link for this. 

This is a small bulletin board that I have outside my room. I printed a bunch of 4X4 photos but I didn't have a good wall space that looked right to use them as a mural so I ended up using them for this bulletin board instead. 

Finally, in case you are an art teacher and you are curious about the state of my closets....have a look here. 

OMG! I am so excited to show you a new space this year. ​I am moving to a high school art job in a new district and I am thrilled for a new opportunity. 

Before I show you my new art room I want to do an Art Room Flashback, as many teachers are getting their rooms ready right now, I thought it might be helpful to have some inspiration. 

I taught in the middle school room for summer school for a few years before I moved to it in 2014. 
Before I decorated my middle school art room in 2014.
​After I decorated it.
Updated decor and additions in 2018. 
Here is an even farther flashback to my elementary art room 2013-2014 and a few pics here. 

Of course you change a few things every year. Here are a few pics of my room in action so you can see how full it was once the students were in there...a very busy, tight space. I would've really liked to get rid of my teacher's desk to make more room in there, but I always needed a spot for sub plans and it felt like the best place for them. 

Art Room Tour SPRING 2017

I will tell you that it was much easier to move the first time. Even though I had two art rooms when I taught elementary, when I moved to the middle school across town, I just put everything in the middle of the room and a crew of custodians moved all of my furniture and boxes. This time around, I took a load home almost every day of books, decor items and accumulated junk. Over spring break, I went through several of my totes and condensed as much as I could down, and got rid of a bunch of fabric and junk. I had to have everything out before the last day of school, so my husband went with me, and we got almost everything the weekend before the last day. We put it all in my garage. 

Several days in June/July, I took loads of stuff to my new room and started sorting it an organizing it. I still have a pile in the garage that I hate to get rid of but I probably won't need since I will be teaching high school. 

My My load of stuff that I brought home. It was kind of a cool looking truck load. The photo below is a pic of my room undecorated. I left a few things for the new art teacher, like the tables, which were a gift from a friend...and the paint cans and my cool painted desk and the rugs and the styrofoam paint pallet that I painted...and the cool knobs on all of the cabinet drawers. Hopefully it is appreciated by a new teacher in the future. 

For now, I am busy decorating my new room. TRYING to purge old 'babyish' stuff and overall trying not to make my new space look too cluttered. I am not a minimalist. I am a maximalist to the max. 

I have over a dozen wooden manikins in my art room. Each year at least 1-2 drop an arm or a leg from regular wear and tear as I let my students reposition them. My students love to set them up into action poses and practice their drawing skills. 

When the first one broke, I worked like a cobbler to try to fix it, but I could not get the screw back under the spring inside the leg joint. So I stuck the wooden leg in my desk and put the manikin out of commission.

This year, I purchased 4 new guys and brought the old ones out of retirement. I hot glued the missing parts back in place, now they aren't as re-positionable, but they are stationary statues that I can use to decorate for Halloween. 

After hot-gluing the missing parts, I just used regular acrylic paint to jazz them up. I used an old scrap of a black canvas apron for the vampire. For the mummy, I tore a cheesecloth into strips and wrapped him up. Franky was made with just paint and a couple of screws. 

I kind of like that they are faceless.....it makes them a little less scary. What do you think, should I paint faces on them? 

Over the summer, I read a couple of books on Fung Shui (here and here) and a couple of articles about fung shui in the classroom.

As a result, I decided that first, I needed to get rid of some of the red decor elements I had every where in the room. Our school colors are red and columbia blue, so I've always been drawn to red as a decor color but it does cause excitability. Red is an intense color, but I had about 6 pieces of furniture painted red and a bright red rug on the floor. I didn't want to totally repaint everything so I took a little inspiration from Cassie Stephens and turned this stool into a paint pallette and transformed the rungs into brushes.

​I did repaint one red metal cabinet with a very light blue. I'm thinking I will zentangle a design on here or something fun someday, it just hasn't happened yet. 

The smaller table in the photo below used to be hot pink and decoupaged with loud craft paper. I toned it down with the a layer of baby blue paint and put it near my desk. I need lots of little tables at the front of the room for each project as I always have tons of visuals and supplies. I put my desk at the front of the room, turned at an angle facing the door. It is not exactly in the center of the front, but it is off to one side and if I compare it to the bagua map, this is the perfect spot for knowledge and self cultivation. 

According to the bagua map (since my classroom door is in the southwest corner of the room, it isn't the ideal layout to work with the map, I am using the place on the chart below where the door icons are, is true North, with the left side being east and the right side being west). This puts my sinks in the perfect spot for career and life path, flowing water, etc. 

I also added a second white board to my room this year so that my students could face east instead of west. My clock is on the west wall, and now I can watch it but they can't really see it if they are facing front. And their backs are to the door, which is nice too, way less distractions. 

I feel like the 'flow' of my room and the energy has been better this year than ever before. Maybe it is just wishful thinking, maybe it is having nicer classes, or maybe there is something to this whole energy thing. 

I saw this paintbrush wreath on the facebook group Art Teachers: Beg Borrow and Steal by Vallerie Ivy  and I immediately had to order the paint brushes and make one myself. I worked on this in July, before I went back to school. It hangs in the all outside my room now. My husband helped me drill holes in the paint brushes and, one near the metal and one on the end. I strung some aluminum wire in the holes and it when together quite quickly. I even had some paint brushes left over that I painted to use as hall passes. 

This table got a makeover. It was solid red, and I painted the legs to look like pencils and added a little texture to the top. I used an old can of textured spray paint that was already in my room. 

This is a full on Cassie Stephens copycat. I needed a new door wreath that would last all year and this was so cheap and easy to throw together, I could not resist. I got an extra piece of wood and painted a sign for the hall with my name on it (below). 

Ah, the Vikings. I love teaching about how the Vikings mastered the sea, navigating vast expanses of open sea without compasses, satellites, or radio communications. Their skillfully crafted wooden ships could take them anywhere. This little Viking ship postcard is just one visual that belongs in a packet of images related to Celtic and Viking art.

It is amazing that I can successfully navigate the makeshift filing system of artifacts and visuals located in the below a little school house in my district. The storage room, to a few art teachers I work with, is known lovingly as THE BASEMENT. It is smelly, damp, buggy, and crammed with boxes, foam trays, egg cartons, posters, you name it, we probably have it in the basement. It doesn't have an electronic filing system and the selves aren't labeled with fancy shelf markers. Quite frankly, it is a haven for cockroaches, the Grand Budapest Hotel for those crunchy critters to hide in the cardboard and foam.

To access THE BASEMENT, one must first descend a treacherous staircase, arms loaded with boxes and packets and files. It is much better if you can experience this your first time when the stairs are icy. At the very least, you must visit when it is a 110 degrees, as you press your armload of supplies against yourself and fumble with the keys to unlock the padlock. When I go at night, I'm always afraid that the Basilisk from Harry Potter will pop out of that little drain in the ground while my hands are full and I am trying to unlock the lock. At the very least, I am afraid of a black snack, curled up in the leaves in the corner will slither over while I am trying enter the basement, and I will be too afraid of its little army of baby snakes hiding in the leaves to go into the storage room.

This room has not been cleaned for many years. Another teacher and myself, spent a couple of hours last spring hauling out piles of old boxes and dried up paint that had come to live amongst the clutter. As disorganized and chaotic as this looks to a layperson, I can assure you that Leslie and I can determine exactly where a little postcard of a Viking ship should reside, and we can file it the correct spot, in a matter of just a few seconds. Whenever we go to the basement, it is a quick IN and OUT sort of trip. Grab what you need and bolt.

This location is a great place to keep colored sand for sand painting, a box of old shoes for shoe printing, extra plastic buckets for making paper, shells, bubble wrap, all the junk that is helpful once in a while, but you just don't have room to store in a classroom. I can't imagine NOT having a place to put all of these big packets full of visuals and samples. When I traveled between schools, it was so nice having a neutral location for these things so that I didn't not have to wonder which school they were housed, they were at the basement.

To most people, this room probably just looks like a giant junk heap. But I can't imagine teaching art without access to all of the stuff that is stored down here. It might look completely unorganized, but once you learn the system, the room is filled with treasures (ahem, to an art teacher). And you might argue that this room is really Leslie's accomplishment, and I am just her little understudy in the basement of wonders, but I have my own little corner, filled with all kinds of great things too.

Where do you store all of your random supplies? Do you have to scavenge for every project or is there somewhere that you keep stuff like this?

Post a picture of your classroom, and describe what you see--and what you don't see that you'd like to.

Happy Friday everyone!!

This room has some good bones. It is large, but not too big. It has a great storage closet and some decent cabinet space. If I could change anything--WINDOWS! More floor space for big tables where students can move and spread out. More tables for specialized art centers, because when everyone is up and moving, there isn't enough room for a lot of specialty materials.

I'm very lucky to have technology. I was also lucky to get the tables that I do have donated, but sometimes every single chair is full, so we don't have a lot of space to spread out, for those kiddos that need a special seat or that like to work alone.

This post is part of the 30-Day blog challenge for teachers. #reflectiveteaching

Finally! Here is a peek at my new room. See the 'BEFORE' pictures HERE.

Open house was a huge success. Many of the 6th graders were like WOW, it is so clean in here! It is like a completely different room. They were blown away.

I also had several parents offer to volunteer....I've haven't had a lot of that before, but it is very exciting to have those eager parents who are so supportive right out of the gate!!

The black and white mural in the corner was already in the room when I moved in, so I am lucky to have it. A student who helped paint it stopped by with her brother and I got meet her and she wrote her name below it. Cool moment!

The tables were donated by a great friend, champion, and mentor Josie Mai. The shape and dimensions  of the tables allowed me to really rearrange things in the space.

Most of the decor was given to me by students, like this awesome metal plaque above. LOVE THIS!!

Or found at garage sales and flea markets. The mona lisa curtain was found at a garage sale several years ago for $15!!

You might want to refer to the BEFORE photo here to see the transformation in this corner. Love how the beaded curtain is reflected in one of the mirrors. I've collected those mirrors at flea markets over the years.

I was very lucky to have the chance to get the district wood shop crew into the room over the summer to build the bookcase and the cabinets. 

Love those Crystal 'Why We Teach Art' display cards. Perfect for finishing off a board!

If you are looking for FREE---COOL--COLOR--printable--CLASSROOM--signs, LOOK HERE.

To label my tables by color, I spray painted old paint cans, and then dripped paint down the sides. I used glow-in the dark paint, glitter paint, whatever. They are lightweight and look really cool hanging from the ceiling!

I'm excited for the year to start!

If you are ever at the middle school, stop by and visit!!

I've had a great run as a K-4 art teacher, but this year, I'm moving up to our 5th and 6th grade middle school position. I'm excited that all of my students will be able to read....I think it will be a game changer for expectations and learning, since I spent most of my days breaking down basic procedures, this will be a whole new way of experiencing teaching and education.

Part of the move means setting up the new space to make it conducive to learning. I've used the new classroom before, during summer school, and I'm sure I imagined what I would change to make the room better....so I finally had the opportunity to get in there this summer. Luckily, the timing was right and I was able to do several amazing things to improve the room.

In this post, I will show you the BEFORE photos of the room. These were taken during summer school. For the record, the class in the pictures was exceptionally small and did a good job of staying on task so I used them as my 'models'. Future classes in my new job will be MUCH bigger, up to 32 or 33 at times.

I had a lot of time to visualize the room before my furniture/books/supplies were moved on July 7th. I knew that some new tables were to be donated to replace the ones in the photos above, so I could reconfigure the layout a bit. I also knew I was bringing in my own, smaller teacher-desk and having some custom cabinets installed by the district.

So I used a really cool program called Floor Planner to map out the room. It was fun to create this 3-d map of the room before moving everything...it also helped me realize that I have more stuff (since I am moving 2 classrooms worth of stuff), than I needed for this room. It gives you a 2-d representation of the space, as well as a 3-d view to help with positioning and everything.

This classroom also has a storage closet, I'm really excited to have a place to put all the stuff that doesn't need to be visible, but needs to be available. The decor was pretty sparse...one optical illusion mural in the corner, a couple of posters, but not much else.

A lot of elementary teachers I have worked with, feel like every surface should be covered with something. Every visible wall space should be useable in some way, covered with posters, charts, classroom management materials, inspirational quotes. I'm working with a lot of white walls, what do you think? Is an elementary classroom with lots of stuff on the walls 'too busy' or is it necessary? Do you think too much stuff can be a distraction or do you think it helps with the creative process? Is it inspirational or a distraction?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!!
I'll post the AFTER pictures soon!!

Or you could stop by during open house Monday 5:30-7:00 and see for yourself. We will have a collaborative mural going, so you can even do a little painting while you are there.