Phase Four: My goodness, aren’t we out of phases yet?

Phase four, as we’ll call it, in the Great Den Decorating Process is complete.  Phase four was my inspiration bulletin board makeover!

My bulletin board, where I post my to do list, measurements, calendar, ideas, and general sewing paraphernalia, was just your basic bulletin board.  It came from my parent’s house where it used to hang in the kitchen beside the fridge where no one could actually reach it.  I stole rescued it and use it as a prominent display space in my sewing room.

After 20 years of suffering NC humidity, the glue was no longer sticking and the cork was bubbling up and looking sad.  The poor thing was just begging for an overhaul. 

Here is the before  (note: tragic details are not visible):

 

So, I took it down and scraped off all the old, stubborn cork.  Then I painted the frame a nice semi-gloss white:

The next step was to reapply new cork.  Since I had bought cork squares, that part was a little tricky.  I tiled them on and used spray adhesive to stick them down.  Then I upholstered it with white canvas.  That part didn’t work out so well…

Firstly, the canvas was too small (somehow, even though I measured); secondly, the edges of the fabric next to the frame were fraying (boo); and lastly, you could see all the seams in the cork through the canvas!  Arrrrgh!

So, being the resourceful chick that I am, I turned to the internet for advice and decided to upholster the bulletin board for real!

So, I took it all apart from the frame and backer.  Then I glued on a layer of quilt batting to cover the seams, and followed that up by stapling the canvas around to the back of the board.  Then I reapplied the frame and backer.

Voila!

 

I covered the new fancy board with all my doodles and papers.  I even made some cute button pins by gluing push pins to the backs of cool buttons!  Me like.  The other special project is my old pink clipboard which I painted and decoupaged with scrapbook paper.  I even added an “S” so everyone knows who it belongs to. :)  It’s useful for holding all my inspiration photos which were just cluttering things up before.

Now, if I could just get some nice pale green paint on those walls, that white frame would pop! 

Lucky for you, my tutorial does not end here.  I have one more important lesson to impart.  The polyester batting plan was not so hot.  The board is way too fluffy and it prevents short pins from reaching enough cork to stick.  They just pop right back out!  So, for now, I’m using sewing pins instead.  Sad, I know.  (At least around the edges where the tension is higher, the cute pins still stay.)  Next time I’ll buy the cork on a roll to avoid the seams plus batting incident! (Or use thinner cotton batting instead.)

That concludes phase four.  Next up: art, I guess?  I’ll be getting around to that sometime in the near future.  Hope you are enjoying the tour of my den project!