How to Decorate Your Bulletin Board Like a Pro

Creating festive and beautiful displays for your classroom should be fun! But let’s face it; it takes time and energy to bring an eye-catching display to life. You want your banners to stay in place, your lettering to be balanced, and your designs to pop! And you want your efforts to pay off the first time. So today I’m sharing my tried-and-true decorating tricks with you! Check out these 4 tips on how to decorate your bulletin board like a pro!

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Tip 1: Double Layering Borders

This is a fun technique that will save you time, energy, and money throughout the year! To double layer my borders, first I purchase a neutral border to line the outside of my bulletin boards. And I leave that border up throughout the year. The trick is to choose a design that’s versatile enough to go with any seasonal decor you’re going to use. Here are some of my favorite bulletin board borders and backgrounds that look amazing with so many different displays!

Next, as I’m decorating my board for the season, I use a more festive, theme-specific border as a secondary, inner border. This adds a pop of color or fun pattern to the display, but doesn’t take as much effort or material to switch out as the outer border does. And the best part is that I include inner border options in so many of my bulletin board kits!

Tip 2: Banners that Stay Put

These wooden clothespins with thumbtacks are the secret to banners that stay put! Definitely keep these little guys handy when hanging banners on your bulletin boards. I still like to use string too, but the combo of these pins with string or twine works so well to keep your banners in place.

Tip 3: The Best Way to Center Your Lettering

How many of us have stapled all the letters on our bulletin boards only to realize they’re too far to one side or the other? Here’s my pro tip for getting perfectly balanced sayings on your bulletin board every time!

First, figure out which letter in your saying is at the halfway point. Count the total number of letters (including punctuation and spaces), then divide by 2. For example, let’s say your saying is “Welcome Back!” It has 13 letters/spaces/punctuation total, so the middle letter is the 7th one, which is “e” in this example. So we would place the “e” in the middle of the board first, then place the other letters working outward from the center. If you need to, grab a tape measure to determine where the center of your board is too! But I usually just eye-ball it.

The video above shows how I do this. Of course, you won’t always want every word centered (like “cozy” in this display), but for the words that you do want to be in the middle, this technique works great!

Tip 4: Washi Tape for the Win!

Next, let’s look at how to decorate your bulletin board using washi tape. If you aren’t already using washi tape, you need to! How often have you stapled something to your bulletin board, then decided you want it in a different place? This tip is a lifesaver (and you’ll save a lot of staples too)! I love to use washi tape to place items on my border first to make sure it’s right where I want it. Then I can still move things around to try out different arrangements. And once I have everything placed just right, then I staple to secure it.

This tip works whether you’re hanging student work, classroom posters, lettering for a special saying, or an intricate bulletin board design! You won’t go back after using washi tape to set up your displays!

More Tips for Decorating Your Bulletin Boards

Be sure to check out these 5 tips for printing classroom decor for pro recommendations on what paper to use, printing suggestions, and more! Also, if you’re decorating a really large display (or maybe a super small one) check out this guide for how to enlarge or shrink classroom decor during printing. These are must-have pointers for anyone who wants to create an eye-catching display in their classroom or school hallway!

Decorating Your Bulletin Board Like a Pro

I hope you’ve gotten some great tips for how to decorate your bulletin board in this post! Please share your creations with me on Instagram @ashleymckenzietpt. I’d absolutely love to see how your classroom turns out with these tips!