Curly Border!

This will be a quick post, mainly because I am feeling lazy on my last Saturday afternoon before school starts.

If you have been reading the posts this week, then you have seen some of my classroom bulletin boards.
This is my Future's So Bright board.  The sunglasses frames are just waiting to hold pictures of my new students.  I have giant gag sunglasses for them to pose in for the pictures.  Around the edge of the board is what I call curly border.  It is really easy to make and very inexpensive.
 1.  Start with a piece of construction paper.  Round off the corners.  Those are my Fiskars scissors - I cannot live without them in the classroom.  They slide across paper as if it were butta'.
 2.  Then start cutting up, around, and inward - cut towards the middle.  Think of it like peeling an apple, all curly and irregular.  It actually looks better when it is curvy rather than straight and perfect.
3. You end up with a curly mess of construction paper ribbon.  
4.  Then you just loosely staple it.  Twist and turn it gently as you go, let it flow.
5.  I like to use it when I go "off the board" or to add depth.  It is perfect for OCD me, because it looks better not straight - I can spend hours straightening border and paper.  This border can camouflage a variety of imperfections. 
6.  You can use one color or two.  Three makes it look like a circus.  This board is my "reference board" and will change little as the year goes by.  It will hold my "anchor charts" and formulas.  The pink is a plastic tablecloth (again, perfect for "off board" bulletin boards), and those are the paper plates that I found at Big Lots in June.  
7.  I added a curly ribbon of blue to this border to help it pop, but in this picture you can see how easy it is to staple die-cut objects/pictures to the border for extra dimension.  If you look at the Future's So Bright board picture at the top, you should see the sunglasses hanging on the border.
8.  There are some limitations to this easy border.  The foremost being that since it does pop off the board, things and kids get caught in it as they walk by.  The blue board does not have the curly border, because those pocket charts are going to be changed out daily - too much traffic.  You can laminate the construction paper before you cut, and it will make it slightly more durable.  However, since it is so easy to snip and re-staple as good as new, it seems silly.


 Happy Bulletin Boards!

2 comments

  1. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this idea! Aren't you clever! Definitely giving this a try! Thanks!

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  2. What a super cute idea! It makes me think of a party, great job!

    Jamie
    Sixth Grade Tales
    Follow my new Facebook page

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