Oooohs and Aaaahs!

Here are photos of the mural finally going up on the elementary cafeteria wall.  I never did pre-measure, I just eye balled it and thought it would fit.  Thankfully it was within about seven inches from the ceiling and fit perfectly with the width of the windows!

This is the view when you walk into the cafeteria.  When the students saw it for the first time you could hear the "Oooohs and Aaaahs" from down the hall.  They were very proud of their hard work!  

About 13,000 bottle caps, 34.5 tubes of glue, 96 square feet, 5 days...

Before

After sketching out the picture a couple of my high school students and I painted the 96 square feet mural.  

 After

We began on a Monday and in exactly 5 afternoons my K-5 elementary students were able to complete this Monet inspired mural recycling about 13,000 bottle caps.  We finished on Friday at exactly 3:00. 

Here's a close up of the bee.  A clean looking yellow bottle cap is hard to come by.  Most of them are blue or green on the inside.  The tops of the caps have writing on them which make them look dirty.  My students decided that the top of a Dr. Pepper bottle cap looked better than the green-blue inside.  So we glued each of them top side up.  

I wanted to have a light blue sky with a white cloud, but we just didn't have enough white caps with blue insides.  So I had a settle with a white sky and blue cloud.  

We used blue bottle caps with white insides for the bubbles.  Marker caps were used for the fins of the fish and flowers for the lily pads.  

Mrs. Retcher's kindergarten worked on the butterfly and they were so proud of it!!

Gearing up for another mural.

Here is our collection of bottle caps.

 We are still collecting in this bucket outside of my classroom.

 The adhesive is purchased, 34 tubes to be exact.

 The original sketch.

The final drawing colored according to what colors we have the most of.  

The boards have been primed and are ready for me to sketch out the mural.  It should be ready to go in about a week.  Wish me luck!  

Going Up!!

I love how this turned out, the trim really finishes it off!  My favorite part was hearing the kids oh and ah when they saw it for the first time.  Thank you Eric Bassette for all of your help!

We used around 13,000 bottle caps!!

In just over two days my k-6 students, some of our teachers, and I completed a 96 square foot bottle cap mural!!  It could not have went any smoother!  The photos below will show you our step-by-step process.

 This box sits outside of my classroom door.  The kids drop off any caps as they collect them.

 This is my back counter in my room.  Boxes full of caps.

 Students separate the bottle caps according to color.

 This is the sketch that I came up with.  I tried to draw it according to what colors we had the most of.  I knew I had lots of white, blue, and green.

 This wall above the exit doors is where the mural will be mounted.  I love the idea of having it so high.  This way no little wondering hands will be able to touch it! :)

 Here's me in action drawing the mural.  

 When the drawing was finished I painted it with acrylic paint.  

 Here are my students in action.  First we covered the entire mural just to make sure we had enough of each color.  Good thing we did because we ran out of blue for the sky.  When the entire piece was covered then we began to glue the caps down.

 This is our finished product....and what a production it was!  It will be displayed on the stage at our art show and then permanently displayed on the wall outside of my classroom.  Congratulations to all of my students on doing such a wonderful job!!