Sunday, April 1, 2012

Up-Cycled Cork Board Tutorial




This weekend was a lazy one but we did do a little cleaning and moving around. Me and my husband like to play musical chairs with our house so for the third time since we moved into our home 1.5 years ago we moved our bedroom into another room in the house. 

We really don't have a very big house so its not like we have endless options so lets hope third time is a charm, this also means that my future craft room is only a "queen bed removal away". 

Anyways during our moving around we located our old ugly cork board that we still use from time to time but never had a place to put mainly because it was just too darn ugly to hang on any wall. So what is one to do? Well instead of throwing it out and buying a new one we decided to do a little up-cycling and turn it into something aesthetically pleasing, and if you would like to know how have a look below. 




Up-Cycled Cork Board Tutorial

What you need:

  • An old cork board
  • Trim (if your board does not have it already)
  • White paint
  • Fabric to fit your board
  • Sewing machine to edge stitch 
  • Staple gun or fun thumbnails for keeping fabric in place


Start with an old cork board. Ours had a nice little border frame on it already but if yours doesn't you can certainly add it using trim wood from any lumber or home depot type of store.

First step is to paint it with some white trim paint (or other fun color you prefer). You could use any paint, you may just have to add another coat if two coats doesn't do the trick.










We decided to paint the whole board white so that the brown cork would not shine through my very thin yellow fabric, we just did one coat of white on the actual board, and two coats for the border, if you are using a thicker fabric you can omit this step and just paint the border.

Leave the board to dry for several hours or overnight. Go to work on your fabric in the meantime.
Measure your fabric and cut it carefully with an 0.5" seam allowance. Make sure that your fabric is straight, my cut was off slightly making it look a bit crocket, something to be more careful of next time.
Do an overlock or zig zag stitch all the way around your fabric and place it on your board (when your board is completely dry)
Bend the edge of the fabric (the part that you made an overlock or zig zag stitch on) under itself to hide the stitch.
(Picture left side has been bend, bottom have not)
Get out your staple gun and place staples all the way around. You could also use fun thumbnails to keep the fabric in place if you want to avoid seeing staples on your board.
Now all you have to do is hang your new board and you are ready to pin whatever you like, and if you like this post feel free to Pinterest it :)

Enjoy.