Wednesday, April 27, 2011

DIY memo board, take two

Hey all! This week is going by SO FAST! Can you believe the weekend is almost here?

If you’ve read this here blog for a while, you know I share the fails along with the good stuff. And sometimes there’s a project that’s not necessarily a fail --  it just doesn’t work the way I had hoped.

Case in point – the DIY memo board in my office:

I showed you how I made it back in January. After I finished, I hung it up, admired it, and then stuck my first pin in to hold up a reminder…and the hives started.

The pin put a huge hole in the beautiful fabric – the fabric that pretty much inspired the whole room. The fabric I LOVE that I do NOT want to have meeeellions of holes in.

Breathe Sarah.

:)

I tried different pins, and again with the hyperventilating.

The fabric I used on my old board worked fine:

I know that one looks a hot mess – it was on it’s last leg. :)

Anyway, that fabric was thinner, so it did fine with the push pins. The new fabric, notsomuch.

Because I really wanted to have a memo board I could actually use…I had to figure out a new way to go about this project.

It finally came to me, in the form of magnets.

And it only took three months (who’s counting?) but I finally got it done. Again.

I picked up a sheet of metal at Lowes that was the perfect size for what I needed. YES! No cutting necessary. Until I got it home and realized they put the wrong tag on it – and it was six inches too long.

I don’t have metal snippers of any kind, but I was determined to not go back to the hardware store again – so I tried our do-it-all scissors…and they worked!:

We LOVE these things – they cut through just about anything. Including metal. ;) Who would have thunk? (You can find them at Bed Bath and Beyond.)

I used plenty ‘o Liquid Nails on one side of the metal sheet:

And centered on my piece of foam:

I wrapped it with the fabric – again. And secured the fabric to the back of the board with hot glue. Again. :)

Then I used my nail gun to nail it onto the back of the frame:

If you attempt this, you could use either the foam board (for push pins) or the metal (for magnets) – you really don’t need both. I just used the foam because I had it, and it made it easy to attach it to the back of the frame.

When I was done, I realized the frame needed just a little somethin’:

And decided it was time to stress a little and do a little distressing:

I always sweat when I do that, even though it’s no big deal – if you sand off too much, you can just touch it up with paint.

But I do always stress. :)

I finished it up (again) by adding a coat of poly to protect it:

And now, it’s finally ready to do it’s job:

For reals this time!

I made some DIY magnets by taking some cute scrapbooking brads and little magnets:

I just took off the “brad” part (they twisted right off) and glued a magnet on the back:

So I finally have a spot to put all of my memos…you know, cause it’s a MEMO board.

DIY memo board

Not a sit empty for three months cause you’re going to ruin it if you use it. :)

I still don’t know if it will stay in that spot – it’s convenient, but it depends on how much I put up there. (These were just random things I had nearby.) If it gets too cluttered I may move it across the room.

I’ll live with it for a while where it is and see how I use it. But now, at least I can USE it:

board and batten office

And not just admire. It’s function over form around these parts. :)

You may have noticed…no, I still haven’t painted the board and batten. Soon. I swear. I’m mentally preparing myself.

Let’s just focus on how far it’s come, umkay?:

Now…onto filling holes, caulking, priming, painting, filling holes, caulking…whimper.

Hold me.

:)

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