New School Year, New Bookshelves

So do you remember those bookshelves I got at yard sales in this post?  They looked like this:

They were cheap and in good shape, but they weren't really appealing for a first grade classroom.  And they didn't match.  So to make them beautiful, we looked on Pinterest to see how to paint laminate.  For the record, Pinterest isn't always a completely reliable source...  Pinterest told us to paint them with primer (which took about 4-5 coats just to make it look consistently white) and then use colored paint.  The primer was still coming off through the paint, but overall it looked pretty good.  It took me, my mother, and my mother-in-law about 11 hours to do these shelves.  If it hadn't been for them, I would have spent DAYS painting.  This year we're going to have a big long discussion in my classroom about how to be gentle with the bookshelves - because I am NOT painting laminate again.

Here they are!  We used painters tape and Frog Tape to get the different designs.

And for the record, the princess shelf in the picture from the yard sales is staying just the way it is.  I just don't have the heart to paint over Belle and Cinderella - nor the energy.