DIY Classroom Decor Ideas




Create a classroom you love with my DIY classroom decor ideas. My DIY classroom decor ideas are all printable PDFs that can be printed in colour on white paper or printed in black and white on coloured paper, decor that you or your students can create to give your classroom a calm and welcoming look. All of my classroom posters are designed with a simple and minimalist look so that they don’t look distracting or busy. All posters are sized: Poster sizes are 8.5" x 11.”

I often laminate my classroom decor to keep it looking new for years to come.


Sometimes I rotate my decor on bulletin boards or hang the decor beside student artwork. 


Classroom decor helps to make your classroom more inviting and feel more like a community or home and less institutional



DIY Classroom Decor Ideas

  • Adding plants -real, fake or dried

  • Adding fabric on your bulletin boards or wall paper

  • Printing or design your own borders for bulletin boards

  • Choose a consistent colour palette to decorate your classroom

  • Hang student artwork

  • Hang printed posters

  • Arrange books by colour

  • Add decorative objects related to the topics you are teaching

  • Keep wall, bulletin boards minimal so they aren’t too distracting 


Calming Classroom Decor

I have created calming classroom decor with blue and white designs using the cyanotype process and botanicals.

Pine theme -classroom decor

Palm leaf theme classroom decor

Daisy theme classroom decor

Growth Mindset Printable PDF Posters


These posters are a plant theme with watercolour clipart added. There are 15 posters in colour and black and white versions in this growth mindset poster package.

Check out the posters here!


These growth mindset posters are great to hang in your room in September when you're teaching about growth mindset. If you are like me and you love having a lot of plants in your classroom these posters will really match your classroom decor and accompany your plant friends nicely.




Art Room Rules Posters

You can download my FREE Art Room Rules Posters here!  This set of FREE posters includes 3 different styles of rules for the art room in colour and black and white versions! 



Blue Paint Theme of Artist Affirmation Posters

Blue Paint Theme of Artist Affirmation Posters

Artist Affirmation Posters

Each of these sets of affirmation posters have a paint theme with paint splatters and paint brushes. Each set of posters includes different artist affirmations. These posters will look great hanging next to student art work in your art classroom. 

Check out the Rainbow Paint Theme - here!

Check out the Blue Paint Theme- here!

Rainbow Paint Theme for Affirmation Art Posters

Rainbow Paint Theme for Affirmation Art Posters

5 Tips for Still Life Painting - Paint a Better Still Life!

5 Tips for how to paint a better still life will help improve your still life painting! Painting a still life as a beginner painter can be difficult.

Especially when you are trying to make the painting realistic! I have written a collection of tips to help make this process easier!

There is also an assortment of videos on painting still lives from lemons to eggs and everything in between. You can check out those painting lessons on my acrylic painting for beginners YouTube channel

How to Paint a Lemon- watch this video to learn more: https://youtu.be/qdisde0rhRM

How to Paint a Lemon- watch this video to learn more: click here to watch!

Here Are Some Tips to Paint a Better Still Life:

  1. It helps to have your still life set up and arranged in front of you to paint, alternatively you can paint from a colour photograph -however having a real still life like a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers right there will allow you to see all the tiny details.

  2. Map out your painting in a coloured stick of chalk. A still life is all about painting/drawing what you see. Draw your still life in a stick of chalk. If you make a mistake it will easily rub off -saving you paint and time! Using something like a pencil to draw on the canvas might still show through layers of paint and can be hard to erase.

  3. Exaggerate the highlights and shadows! Shadows and highlights on an object is what makes it look three-dimensional in a painting. You have the creative freedom to express what you see and convince someone that what you are painting is life-like. So darken the shadows and brighten the highlights to make them pop and stand out! A way of doing this is shining a light from a lamp on your still life which will make it more obvious where the highlights and shadows are making it easier to paint!

Bird’s nest still life painting - watch how to paint the eggs- here!

Bird’s nest still life painting - watch how to paint the eggs- here!

4. Paint in the direction of your object. This sounds obvious but a lot of beginner painters make the mistake of painting all objects with long flat straight brushstrokes. This ends up making round objects like lemons, apples and vases look flat and lack having a form. I have created a great short YouTube video to help with this- click here!

5. Remember to paint in layers and take your time! You don’t need to finish your painting in one sitting, taking your time allows you to add more details which helps make the painting more realistic. If you don’t like something you can paint over it -this is why I love acrylic painting!

Bonus tip:

If you are painting a still life over a day take a photo of it to ensure you are capturing the same lighting and that objects haven’t moved!

You can learn more about acrylic painting by checking out my FREE 16 Page Guide - 10 Mistakes Beginner Painters Make and How to Avoid Them!

 

I would love to see your still life paintings and give you feedback! tag me on instagram @jackiepartridgeart and use the #jackiepartridgeartclasses

I invite you to subscribe to my NEW YouTube Channel where I have new videos for beginner acrylic painters every two weeks!

- Check it out here!

Practice Painting a Still Life

How to Paint a Lemon

How to Paint Round Forms like Eggs

How to Paint a Pumpkin

How to Paint a Poppy

Want to improve your painting quickly? Try my painting coaching!

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