How to Recreate my Classroom Door

Today I am blogging about an area of my classroom that has gotten a lot of attention on Instagram and Facebook: my door! I am humbled by all of the people who have become inspired by my door and wanted to provide a bit more information for those who are interested in re-creating it in their classrooms.

I knew I wanted to paint my door with black chalkboard paint and display some sort of inspirational quote on it. Since I turned my black and brights theme into more of a chalkboard rainbow theme this year, I decided a colorful display with the word rainbow was right up my alley. I literally googled "rainbow quote" and found this awesome inspirational quote by Maya Angelou. 

My door has a window in it so I wanted to play around with the design first and make sure that it fit with the dimensions of my door. I found a super easy way to do that without doing anything to my actual door. Are you ready for this tip? All I did was take a picture of my blank door, insert it in PowerPoint and type the quote. I was able to play around with different fonts, colors, and sizes to get my design exactly how I wanted it. To fill the leftover space, I inserted circles on the top, found some pom pom images online, and added a cloud image to the bottom. It really didn't take long! The best part about this trick is that you can use it to figure out the sizing of your letters. If you measure the width and height of your door, you can use the photo as a scale to figure out how many inches each letter needs to be. The picture below shows how my PowerPoint design turned out!

Once I figured out the dimensions of my letters, I went to work cutting them out on my Silhouette Cameo. (If you don't have a Cameo or a Cricut yet, I highly recommend investing in one or putting it on your Christmas list this year. It is worth every penny!) I cut the letters for "rainbow" and the circles on the top out of Astrobrights paper. I used regular Astrobrights paper because that was all I had, but I would recommend using cardstock if you're able to. The words "be a" and "in someone else's" were cut out of white vinyl. (In case you're wondering, the "in" is missing in this picture because I had temporarily lost it. haha. Thank goodness it turned up the next day!) The word "cloud" was cut from white cardstock, mainly because I ran out of white vinyl and there are no stores here that sell it. #islandproblems. I attached the circles and paper letters to the door using double-sided mounting tape. It took a few tries to position some of them correctly, so I didn't press down too hard on the tape until I was sure they were in the right place.

Next, I added the cloud. I was originally going to use white paint on the bottom of my door, but was running out of time and decided to try out a jumbo chalkboard marker that I purchased from Hobby Lobby over the summer. It worked better than I thought it would and I was glad that I was able to have some sort of chalk on the door. (Originally, my plan was to use chalkboard makers on the whole door, but I'm definitely not artistic enough for that!)

Finally, it was time to add my pom poms. Unfortunately, I only had mint and pink pom-poms from one of my trips to Target this summer. I knew I wanted a variety of colors on the door, but didn't want all my Target pom poms to go to waste. I read online that pom poms could be spray painted and had some leftover spray paint from other classroom projects so I tried it out. And it worked! Check out my blue and green spray painted pom poms in the picture below. The mint pom pom on the left is what they originally looked like. You can see in the picture that they are a little stiffer and shinier than the mint pom pom, but it is hardly noticeable and they work just fine! You would probably be better off just buying the colors you want or making your own, but when you live on a 12 mile island where there are no pom poms for sale and tissue paper in limited colors, you resort to this kind of stuff. 

I had orange tissue paper so I ended up making an orange pom pom using a tutorial I found online. I would have preferred to have a purple pom pom to keep with my rainbow colors, but there was no purple spray paint or tissue paper, so the mint one was there to stay. Check out the finished product below! I was so excited to see my vision come to life and this is one of my favorite areas of my room!

I have added a picture with the fonts I used below if you would like to use the same ones. The fonts that start with PB are from A Perfect Blend on TpT and and can be purchased here. The KG font that I used for the word "cloud" is by Kimberly Geswein and is free for personal use. That font can be downloaded here. Just an FYI: If I had to do it over again, I would probably use a different font for "in someone else's" because it was a little jagged around the edges and my poor Cameo blade had a rough time cutting those letters. 

Here is a side by side comparison of my PowerPoint design and the real thing. They aren't completely identical, but creating it in PowerPoint first was definitely a huge help! 

I hope this post inspires you to create a fun and colorful door quote in your classroom! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment. And if you end up doing your own version of my door in your classroom, I would love to see how it turns out! Please tag me on Instagram @teachinginthetropicsblog, on Facebook (Teaching in the Tropics), or email me pictures at teachinginthetropics@gmail.com!

UPDATE: If you do not have a Silhouette or Cricut and would like to create this door, I now have a kit available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store to purchase! Click the picture below to go to the product page!

Also, if you want this quote in your classroom without the hassle of putting together a door display, I have created a free printable poster with this same design! Click on the picture below to download it in my TPT store!