Crafts for You: Pretty Corkboard

About a week or so ago I found this corkboard at a thrift store for a couple dollars. No one in our family is named "Alicia", so obviously that has to go. It was a good sized board though and with all of my crafting and office stuff everywhere, some organization-that is also pleasing to the eye would be nice, so this is what I came up with. For two years now I have had some fabric sitting around the house that I bought because I loved it, but until this didn't know what to do with it, so this solved two problems! You can use store bought fabric or pretty patterned sheet or tablecloth that you no longer use, whatever. If you want to do this on the cheap, check out a thrift store for your supplies. You'll probably still need to get the ribbon from the craft store though-unless you already have some on hand. Twine or yarn would work too, but it would give you a different look.

What you'll need: Any size cork board, enough fabric to cover your board with just a little bit of extra, batting (or something similiar that is on the fluffy side for filler), ribbon (I used Grosgrain, but you can use anything) a couple yards depending on how big your corkboard, thumb tacks, staple gun, hot glue gun, scissors, optional: buttons

1) Cork board-look for a used one if you can, often you can get these for free also because...well, they're just not exciting in their resting state.

 2) Take your batting, or filler fabric, and cut it to fit over your board. Stretch it to fit over the whole board and folded over to the back of the board. Secure it by stapling it on all sides in the back or the front. I stapled mine to the front because the filler fabric I had wasn't quite wide enough to reach the back. That's ok because it's not going to be seen.

Front

 3). Cut your chosen fabric to fit your board leaving enough extra on all sides to be folded to the back of the board like your batting.

Front

Back

4). Fold the corners in the back to keep the front looking nice and neat. Staple to secure it.

This is what is should basically look like in the back after stapling all the sides.

5). Next grab your ribbon, and cut several different pieces all about the same length to run across your board. I cut six pieces. You can do whatever pattern you'd like with your ribbon, but this is my suggestion.



6) Take some tacks and secure your ribbons in the pattern you want until you get them spaced out the way you want to. This allows you to play around with them before you secure them. Then take your glue gun and glue the ends of the ribbon to the back of the board.

7) Finally, take your thumb tacks and place them in the center of your "x's" to secure them. You can also just glue the centers down if you want. For some extra color I glued some buttons onto the tops of my thumb tacks and then put them in. It gives it a more vintage look. You can place pictures and notes under the ribbons or hang them with additional tacks.

Ta da!

Now you have a pretty cork board for organizing your notes and brainstorming treasures that doesn't make you want to hurl every time you look at it.