Operation Notice Board

After emailing my landlord, I discovered that I won't have a notice board in my room for the next academic year. I thought about buying one and looked on eBay but they all seemed so boring and quite expensive for what they were. I looked the shed and found a grotty old notice board from our old house. It was covered in grass clippings and looked a bit sorry for itself, as you can see:

The board before cleaning and re-covering.

It was good enough considering it was free so I wiped it down with some kitchen cleaner. It was then that I realised I had some fat quarters of material in my bedroom that I'd never gotten round to finishing sewing so I decided to re-cover the notice board in a far friendlier material.

Close up of the original board and the material fat quarter.

The pattern of the material.

Using some super glue and a Pritt Stick (probably would have been better using a glue gun but you know me... never do things the easy way) I started to stick the material down to the original background and tuck the edges of the material underneath the frame all the way around.

Tucking the edges of the material underneath the board's frame.

The material didn't quite reach the end of the board.

It ended up that the material didn't fully cover the board and I really didn't want to piece it together and have a big join running down the middle of the board so I decided to create a chalkboard on half of the notice board. I went to the local independently-owned DIY shop and found a thin piece of board and some chalkboard paint. When I went to pay, the owner didn't charge me for the board because it was just a scrap off-cut from something he was making. Bargain. So I got home, cut the board down to size and gave it a couple of thin coats of the paint. Whilst waiting for that to dry, I figured that I'd need something to keep the chalk in so I covered an old jelly pot with some left over material from the board.

Jelly cup covered in left over material.

When the board was completely dry, I used a hot glue gun (yes, I actually found one!) to glue the chalkboard to the edge of the noticeboard that the material didn't reach. I then glued the back of the jelly cup and stuck it to the bottom of the chalkboard. I decided not to repaint the frame because I love the original colour and it goes with the material really well. It looks amazing and cost no more than the cost of a tin of chalkboard paint - £4 and I used barely any so the tin will last for years. Absolute bargain. :)

The finished product. :)

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