CUSTOM BULLETIN BOARD

 Sorry I am not quite ready to reveal my sneak peak from last week yet. I was majorly distracted these last few days by a thing that has been rare in these parts of late, the sun. I hope you have been enjoying it wherever you are! It's recent appearance here has caused me to put down my paintbrush. In the meantime, I have a little DIY to show you.

  For Christmas last year my son, Liev, gave me a box of lovely KATE SPADE push pins to use in my office. It was so thoughtful and generous of him. Even though I am fairly certain he would not understand why I would love these somewhat costly thumb tacks, he saw them and knew they were something I would love. He also gave me a few other Kate Spade desk items and I love them even more because they were from him. His surprise as to the cost for a thirteen year old is understandable. It's kind of how I feel about the cost of video games, hockey sticks, scooter parts and other costly things he enjoys!

Aren't they lovely!

While I was delighted in receiving these, when I opened the box to use them I quickly realized that their stem was longer than the average push pin. They did not function very well in the bulletin board I had at the time. 

What's a Mom to do when her favorite and only son gives her something so fabulous?  Make a custom bulletin board, of course! I did not do this in a timely fashion, however. Quite a few more holidays passed before I got around to it but, late in the summer, I finally made my bulletin board. Here are some basic instructions, you could adapt to your own custom size, and some not so great pictures from my iPhone. 

SUPPLIES:

• Plywood or MDF cut to your custom size. Building supply stores will usually do this for you no problem. Mine is 1/2" cut to 40" x 18"
• Fabric 
• Quilt batting
• Ribbon 
• Scissors
• Pins
• Hot glue gun
• Staple gun
• Measuring tape
• Ruler
• Lighter
• Pins
• Cork board - I bought mine in squares from the dollar store at about $1.00 a piece!
• Picture hangers

To start, I generously applied hot glue to the wood and secured the first layer of cork squares. I then repeated this step, doubling up on the depth of the cork, to accommodate the deep stem on my push pins. When doing this I offset the seams in the cork squares so as to not have any seems or spaces showing. Doubling up might not be necessary if you are using other types of pins.

Next I covered the cork side of the board in one layer of quilt batting, stapling it on the back. This helped to create a nice smooth surface to staple the fabric over.

Prepare your fabric to wrap by cutting it about three inches larger on all sides then your board. Be careful not to cut it too close. It's nice to have enough to really pull on, in order to keep things smooth. You can always cut off the excess once you are done.

To cover it smoothly, the method I use for any upholstering job, is to start in the middle on all sides and working toward the corners. I make small hospital corners on the ends to keep the fabric from puckering. It was pretty straightforward in this case because I didn't have a pattern on the fabric to align. If you have a patterned fabric you might want to be a little more fussy in order to make sure the print lines up.

You might call this project complete right here but I had to add some kind of decorative element to this board. Because my previous board had upholstery tacks around the edge, this time I decided to use ribbon. A simple 3/8" white grosgrain is what I chose and this design isn't difficult once you figure out the size you would like. 

I chose to cut the two longest pieces to be two inches shorter then the width of my board. I centered and pinned it to have an inch on each side and 3 inches up from the bottom.  Next I cut 8 pieces of ribbon at 2.75 inches and seared each end of the ribbon with the lighter to keep it from fraying. Pin them into place using your ruler and pins to keep them aligned. 

Finally, measure and cut the long side pieces and pin into place creating your square corners. 

Once everything was pinned and secured, I carefully used fabric glue to secure the ribbon in place. I'm sure your glue gun would be fine but I had the fabric glue on hand and found it easy to control on the end of a Q-tip. Finally attach some picture hangers to the back and hang!

Okay so that was very long and detailed post about something thats a pretty basic DIY!

Here is a picture of it in use in my office! 

Thanks Liev for my Christmas present last year. I am one lucky gal because this past Christmas he gifted me with something I love as well. My boy is one thoughtful gift giver, his father has taught him well!

I hope to be back by the end of the week with a new post about the kids room and a shiplap tutorial, unless I get distracted by the sun again. If that's the case it might be Monday.