BIG Project

My mom came from Michigan to visit me this weekend! I would like to say that we just had fun shopping and basking in the sun for a couple days, but who has time for that? We spent most of the time in my classroom working on BIG projects.  

Actually, the projects weren't that complicated, they were just on a large scale. 

First off, take a look at this painting on the wall of my new classroom.  It's 8 feet long!

Please tell me I'm not the only person who thinks this is ugly. (My mom actually kid of likes this painting.) I teach in a Christian school, so a picture of baby Jesus and some angels is very appropriate.  I guess I just don't like the colors and the little laughing angel. And the fact that it is HUGE.  Forgive me, but I just couldn't look at this every day for the next several years. 

So, Operation-Cover-Up began. While I may not like the painting, I didn't want to ruin it or put holes in it, and I couldn't take it down.  My dad built a big wooden frame that we could cover in fabric to make something like a bulletin board. My goodness, it's hard to commit to one piece of fabric that big! 

Here's my mom posing with the fabric I (finally!) chose. Hello chevrons! 

We placed the frame on the fabric... 

...and used a staple gun to hold the fabric in place.

The fabric covered frame was made to fit inside the frame of the original painting.

We (meaning my mom) only had to drill 4 holes in the wall, and we used some aluminum clips that my dad made that went over the frame of the original painting to hold our new fabric frame in place.  

Voila! You can see the clips holding everything in place.  No destruction here!

This is much more pleasing to my eye! It adds a nice cheery backdrop to the room, I think.  A woman at the fabric store told me it was "loud in a good way" so that sounds like a good sign to me.  I think I'm going to put some words at the top and affix student work on the rest of it.  Since I can't put staples or pushpins in it like a normal bulletin board, I'm thinking I might put ribbon across it like a clothesline and clip work on with clothespins or something. 

What do you think? 

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