Thursday 15 December 2011

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Back in August, I completely transformed my daughter's bedroom while she was away on vacation with her grandparents. She was on the cusp of becoming 9 years old, so her bubblegum pink room was starting to seem a little too juvenile for her (or so she told me: "It's too baby-ish"). So with a few (many) coats of a deep and saturated fuschia, my daughter's room quickly changed into a more sophisticated space for a growing little lady. I'll post the deets of that makeover another time, but wanted to share a quick project that was not only cost effective, but super easy too!

Thrift-store corkboard project - for under $10

I was lucky enough to find the perfect frame while poking through the local thrift store (holla ValueVillage!), though it was sort of a stretch to see the beauty lurking beyond this print:

Why so sad, dying flowers?

But I focused on the frame and picked up a few things from the dollar store on the way home:
  • One package of corkboard tiles
  • One package of pretty purple gem thumb tacks
I already had the Krylon spray paint in 'Ivy Leaf' kicking around from a previous project, so I was able to quickly get to work once the baby went down for a nap. I put down some plastic in the carport and quickly ran a coat of the spray paint over the freshly wiped down frame. I let it dry and applied two more thin coats over the next two days to get full coverage without any annoying dripping. I'm super impatient by nature, but with all the curves and detail in this frame, it was important to take it slow with the painting.


Two days later, I was happy with the paint coverage, so I was able to start assembling the corkboard. I used simple white all-purpose glue to adhere the corkboard tiles to the back of the existing print (I couldn't bear to defile that print!). I wasn't too worried about the type of glue I was using because the board fits very snug into the frame.

The next steps were as simple as popping the board back into the frame and hanging it where I wanted using some ribbon and hooks. I added the thumb tacks as a nice surprise for my budding artist. She has since posted multiple drawings of Smurf characters to her board.

The finished corkboard. IKEA's BYGEL containers hanging below the board are a great place to store pencils, little notepapers and other art supplies. At 99 cents each, how could I not?

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