**Upcycling Your Back to School Essentials with DIY Crafts**

As we approach the new school year, many students are left wondering how they can make their back to school experience more exciting and personalized. One way to add some personality to your classroom is by upcycling everyday items into creative and functional crafts. In this article, we'll explore two easy and fun DIY projects that you can complete with just a few basic materials.

**Magnetic Chalkboard Frame**

One of the easiest DIY projects for back to school is transforming an old frame into a magnetic chalkboard. To start, gather your materials: a plain frame, some contact paper, chalkboard paper, scissors, and a pencil or pen. Begin by removing the backing from the contact paper and tracing the outline of the frame onto the chalkboard paper. Cut out the traced design along with the excess contact paper, leaving a small border around the edges.

Next, apply the contact paper to the inside of the frame, smoothing it down as you go. Start at one edge and work your way around the frame, making sure to press the paper firmly onto the surface. Once the adhesive is set, remove the backing from the contact paper, leaving a smooth and even surface. Finally, attach a magnet sheet to the back of the chalkboard paper, ensuring it's securely attached.

With this simple project, you'll have a functional and stylish magnetic chalkboard that's perfect for jotting down reminders or doodling in class. The best part? It's incredibly easy to make and requires minimal materials.

**Bottle Cap Upcycling**

Another fun DIY project is upcycling old bottle caps into unique decorations. You can use faux bottle caps or collect real ones to create a personalized touch. To start, gather your materials: a few bottle caps, some magnets, foam sheets, adhesive-backed foam pieces, paint pens, and chalk pens.

First, cut out small pieces of foam from the adhesive-backed side to create a makeshift magnet. Attach the foam piece to the back of each bottle cap, allowing you to insert a magnet between the two pieces. Next, paint or draw designs onto the bottle caps using your chosen art supplies. Allow the paint to dry completely before handling the caps.

To add an extra layer of security, apply E6000 adhesive to the inside of each bottle cap and attach a small magnet to the other side. This will ensure that the magnets stay in place when you use them. Once all the bottles are complete, you can decorate your fridge or classroom with these unique upcycled decorations.

**The Benefits of DIY Crafts for Back to School**

DIY crafts like magnetic chalkboards and bottle cap upcycling offer a fun and creative way to add personality to your back to school experience. Not only do they provide an opportunity to express yourself, but they also encourage problem-solving and creativity in the classroom. By repurposing everyday items into functional decorations, you can develop essential skills such as critical thinking and resourcefulness.

Furthermore, DIY crafts can serve as a great way to bond with friends and classmates, making the back to school experience more enjoyable and memorable. With just a few basic materials, you can create unique and personalized decorations that reflect your individuality. So why not get creative this year and give one of these DIY projects a try?

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everyone how's it going welcome back to HGTV handmade guess what this week is back to school week and I have here my lovely friends Meg and Julia thank you so much for coming on with me today all righty so I am going to be decorating this picture frame into a magnetic chalkboard and Meg over here is going to decorate some clothes pins into cute little magnet hangers Julia is going to be upcycling some old bottle caps into uh magnets so to continue the decorate your locker project so you're going to go ahead and work with washi tape because it has so many different patterns and colors so you're bound to find something that you dig and you're going to go ahead and take a piece and stretch it across one side of the clothes pin and then cut off the end and then if there's any excess you just tuck it on on the side and then we're going to go ahead and flip it over and on the back we're going to put these little teeny magnets that have stickums on the back and then these are going to be fantastic to put on the inside of your locker and you can hang either your schedule or picture of your dog or you know cute boys so fun to hang like those cute little polaroid pictures too absolutely or just cute decorations or you know whatever you want and depending on how thick the paper is that you're going to be hanging you want to maybe put on I'd say three or four magnets to make sure that they're really strong and then they look really cool and graphic and washi tape you can get as I said in all kinds of colors and patterns and right here we have a little geometric series simple and fun so easy and everybody has clothes pins and if not then you can get them at the 99 cent store so it's the cheapest scraft ever and very functional cute I love an easy project okay so over here I have my frame and I'm going to turn this into a magnetic chalkboard so what I'm going to do first is remove this backing I'm going to use this as my guide onto where I'm going to trace on this chalkboard paper place this on top and luckily there are some lines on here already now with my pen I'm going to trace around this let me just remove this part since I don't need it I'm going to trace around this all right looks like everything is traced and now with my scissor I'm going to cut the lines I just made onto this contact paper and then I'm going to start at the edge and place it along the line just like so and then I'm going to slowly peel the backing off and as I'm doing that I'm going to push the paper down all right so once you have on your chalkboard paper and and I'm just going to remove the inside of the frame put this in and you just have to wiggle it a little bit in order to get it in and once it's in you have this nice now my next step and this is the very last step is to take the magnet sheet and just kind of eyeball how much you will need peel the backing stick it right on so I'm just going to push down the magnets and make sure that it is plus against the frame with the backing of my scissors and now I'm just going to continue this with all three sides so Julia what do you have going on over there can you kind of explain to us sure today I'm going to be upcycling some bottle caps and I've got these faux bottle caps from the craft store but I've also got these real bottle caps that I've been collecting and basically I'm just going to adhere some magnets to the back of them so I've got some some magnets some sheets of foam E6000 and I've also got paint pens and chalk pens as well so the first thing that I'm going to do is take one of my bottle caps and I'm actually going to trace it onto this foam paper right here the reason I'm inserting foam into the bottle caps first is because you can't just insert a magnet on the back of it because it's indented a little bit so you want to allow the magnet a little bit of room to poke out and I'm going to cut out a couple of pieces of foam per magnet I'm actually just going to place this on top and cut out the second one from there all righty and these pieces of foam have an adhesive backing to them so I can just peel off the adhesive backing and stick those together and then I'll take a magnet as well and adhere that to the other side all righty and I'm going to set that aside because now I'm going to work on my bottle caps and the first thing I'm going to do with this bottle cap is take some gold paint pen to blot out what's already on top of it and as you're working with these paint pens be careful not to smudge whatever you add to the top of the bottle cap they take a little time to dry so just be mindful of that I'm going to set that one aside and allow it to dry while I work on another one so I'm going to continue with a faux bottle cap and I'm just going to do a simple polka dot design on it and I'm going to let this one dry while I work on another one that's already dry because I don't want to smear it and all you're doing here is taking this magnet and setting it inside of the bottle cap and it's actually going to stay on its own but when you use this you want to make sure that it doesn't come apart so I'm going to take the E6000 and then I'm just going to pop this in and allow that to dry all right so we are all done with all three of our projects I am so happy with how they all turned out they're so cute and I would totally put them on my refrigerator cuz I'm clearly not going back to senior year next year I would put them on my refrigerator or something I I think they're awesome projects and these projects didn't take any time at all it would definitely be fun to get with your friends do a few of these crafts really quickly and get ready for back to school thank you all so much for watching if you enjoyed this video then don't forget to give us a thumbs up and also if you will be recreating any one of our fabulous DIYs then don't forget to Hash HDTV handmade talk to you next week byehi everyone how's it going welcome back to HGTV handmade guess what this week is back to school week and I have here my lovely friends Meg and Julia thank you so much for coming on with me today all righty so I am going to be decorating this picture frame into a magnetic chalkboard and Meg over here is going to decorate some clothes pins into cute little magnet hangers Julia is going to be upcycling some old bottle caps into uh magnets so to continue the decorate your locker project so you're going to go ahead and work with washi tape because it has so many different patterns and colors so you're bound to find something that you dig and you're going to go ahead and take a piece and stretch it across one side of the clothes pin and then cut off the end and then if there's any excess you just tuck it on on the side and then we're going to go ahead and flip it over and on the back we're going to put these little teeny magnets that have stickums on the back and then these are going to be fantastic to put on the inside of your locker and you can hang either your schedule or picture of your dog or you know cute boys so fun to hang like those cute little polaroid pictures too absolutely or just cute decorations or you know whatever you want and depending on how thick the paper is that you're going to be hanging you want to maybe put on I'd say three or four magnets to make sure that they're really strong and then they look really cool and graphic and washi tape you can get as I said in all kinds of colors and patterns and right here we have a little geometric series simple and fun so easy and everybody has clothes pins and if not then you can get them at the 99 cent store so it's the cheapest scraft ever and very functional cute I love an easy project okay so over here I have my frame and I'm going to turn this into a magnetic chalkboard so what I'm going to do first is remove this backing I'm going to use this as my guide onto where I'm going to trace on this chalkboard paper place this on top and luckily there are some lines on here already now with my pen I'm going to trace around this let me just remove this part since I don't need it I'm going to trace around this all right looks like everything is traced and now with my scissor I'm going to cut the lines I just made onto this contact paper and then I'm going to start at the edge and place it along the line just like so and then I'm going to slowly peel the backing off and as I'm doing that I'm going to push the paper down all right so once you have on your chalkboard paper and and I'm just going to remove the inside of the frame put this in and you just have to wiggle it a little bit in order to get it in and once it's in you have this nice now my next step and this is the very last step is to take the magnet sheet and just kind of eyeball how much you will need peel the backing stick it right on so I'm just going to push down the magnets and make sure that it is plus against the frame with the backing of my scissors and now I'm just going to continue this with all three sides so Julia what do you have going on over there can you kind of explain to us sure today I'm going to be upcycling some bottle caps and I've got these faux bottle caps from the craft store but I've also got these real bottle caps that I've been collecting and basically I'm just going to adhere some magnets to the back of them so I've got some some magnets some sheets of foam E6000 and I've also got paint pens and chalk pens as well so the first thing that I'm going to do is take one of my bottle caps and I'm actually going to trace it onto this foam paper right here the reason I'm inserting foam into the bottle caps first is because you can't just insert a magnet on the back of it because it's indented a little bit so you want to allow the magnet a little bit of room to poke out and I'm going to cut out a couple of pieces of foam per magnet I'm actually just going to place this on top and cut out the second one from there all righty and these pieces of foam have an adhesive backing to them so I can just peel off the adhesive backing and stick those together and then I'll take a magnet as well and adhere that to the other side all righty and I'm going to set that aside because now I'm going to work on my bottle caps and the first thing I'm going to do with this bottle cap is take some gold paint pen to blot out what's already on top of it and as you're working with these paint pens be careful not to smudge whatever you add to the top of the bottle cap they take a little time to dry so just be mindful of that I'm going to set that one aside and allow it to dry while I work on another one so I'm going to continue with a faux bottle cap and I'm just going to do a simple polka dot design on it and I'm going to let this one dry while I work on another one that's already dry because I don't want to smear it and all you're doing here is taking this magnet and setting it inside of the bottle cap and it's actually going to stay on its own but when you use this you want to make sure that it doesn't come apart so I'm going to take the E6000 and then I'm just going to pop this in and allow that to dry all right so we are all done with all three of our projects I am so happy with how they all turned out they're so cute and I would totally put them on my refrigerator cuz I'm clearly not going back to senior year next year I would put them on my refrigerator or something I I think they're awesome projects and these projects didn't take any time at all it would definitely be fun to get with your friends do a few of these crafts really quickly and get ready for back to school thank you all so much for watching if you enjoyed this video then don't forget to give us a thumbs up and also if you will be recreating any one of our fabulous DIYs then don't forget to Hash HDTV handmade talk to you next week bye\n"