It’s that time of year again!  If you listen closely, you can hear the sighs of thousands of kids muffled only by the celebrations of their parents as back-to-school season is officially upon us!  Yours truly is already back to work with a brand new class of sweet third graders, and I’m really excited to be able to share Smart-Fab with you! In case you haven’t heard about this super versatile material, Smart-Fab is “the smart alternative to paper and cloth.”  And I think it’s fab because it’s a super tool for teachers!  Use it to costume your students for their class show (yes, it’s sewable!), introduce it to your art rotation (yes, it’s cuttable and gluable!), but where it really shines is for classroom, especially bulletin board, decor!  And that’s what we’re focusing on today not only because it’s  that time of year, but because Smart-Fab is hosting the Brighten Your Board contest!!  All you creative teachers can use Smart-Fab to deck out your boards, send the photos to Smart-Fab and be entered to win a $500 gift card for your classroom!!  Not bad, huh?  So, let me help you get started with a few tips.

Pick Your Color

With more than a dozen color options, you’re bound to find something that works seamlessly with your classroom or theme.  Or consider grabbing a few colors to create a palette of colors for your boards.  Smart-Fab was kind enough to send three different shades for me to play with so I could write all about it, and I was able to create a fun look for this church camp bulletin board:

BEFORE

Layer, Layer, Layer

While Smart-Fab has the workability of a fabric, it’s definitely a sheer material.  Depending on the color of your bulletin board, you may need to throw a second layer on there.

One layer of Smart-Fab on a brown bulletin board

This could totally work for certain themes or looks, but I was going for a solid purple, so a second layer was just what I needed.

Two layers of Smart-Fab…ahhh, much better!

Fun with Borders

Here’s where Smart-Fab kicks paper’s behind.  Although, like paper, Smart-Fab can be cut cleanly (yea no fray!!), glued and folded, unlike paper, Smart-Fab is super pliable!  I wanted to be able to go a little out of the box with this board, so I decided regular old border wouldn’t work.  Instead, I cut about 50% more length than I needed and gathered the it around the board to create a super fun, textured, bright border.

Add Your Info

Now that you have your base, you’ll decorate as usual.  Like I mentioned earlier, this was a church camp bulletin board used to display the different age groups and objectives.  The camp was actually beginning a few days after I redesigned the board, so the information wasn’t going to be relevant much longer, but that’s another advantage of Smart-Fab.  Easy to change up your content without having to re-do the entire board. With a paper background, chances are you’ll have lovely art or letter or flyer shapes from the fading.  Or if you spring for the fade-proof paper, you can still face the rippage issue if you used adhesives to attach or a rogue staple pulls the paper.  Smart-Fab is fade-proof and very durable! And don’t forget to add little details to pull the look together!

AFTER

Now that your creative juices are flowing, I’m going to make it easy to get your first Smart-Fab board up and running.  Smart-Fab and I are giving you a chance to win not one, not two but three rolls of your own to brighten your board!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Fine Print: For this giveaway only, Smart-Fab will ship three 47″ x 13′ rolls of Smart-Fab to the winner. Winner may request colors by contacting Smart-Fab, and they’d be happy to try and accommodate the giveaway winner’s preference. Winner must live in the continental U.S.

Smart-Fab was kind enough to offer three rolls for me, as well, in exchange for this post.  All opinions are 100% mine, mine, mine!