Bulletin Board Makeover

I've had this one bulletin board since I was about 14. It was your standard grade, "oak" framed cork board. About 9-10 years ago, it got a makeover, complete with silver spray paint an light blue floral ribbon. Very girlie. Perfect for me age 18 . . . not so much for age 27. And especially not so much for FH once we moved in together.

So a couple years ago, it got another makeover (don't you just love items you can constantly revamp rather than having to toss out?). I don't have before pictures or step-by-step pictures (since I wasn't blogging then), but I'd like to share my project with you anyway.

This is my "new" gender-neutral bulletin board:

To start the project, I separated the cork from the frame. Then I painted the frame black and covered the cork in a sturdy cotton fabric (it looks white in the picture, but it's really more of a cream. I'm still figuring this photography thing out. Sorry).

For the large section on the left, I took gray ribbon and used push pins to secure it in back every 2 inches. This made the diamond pattern that can hold papers and such without the use of pins. I then secured the diamonds by placing push pins in the diamond corners where the ribbons would overlap.

For the area on the right, I took some more of the cotton fabric and ironed some pleats in it (deep enough to be pockets). I used a sewing machine to quickly stitch the sides to hold the pleats in place. I used more push pins to secure the edges that would be covered by the frame. To hide the remaining seam, I took a length of faux leather and used a glue gun to secure the seam to the board and the leather to the seam.

To spruce up the push pins (cuz who wants to look at plain old pins all the time?), I hot glued buttons on to them.

I used the same small, white buttons to secure all the diamond corners.

I also glued some decorative buttons on other push pins to  "pretty-up" the board.

Now my bulletin board is all grown up and FH friendly! Isn't it pretty? :o)