Make Your Own Ribbon Bulletin Board

This post is nothing new, but maybe it will still give you an idea.

I get three fashion magazines that come to my house. I guess I'm old school and like to see trends and fashion ideas in actual print vs. having a Pinterest board (which. . .yes. . .I have some of those too). Anyways, I used to clip out my favorite ideas and keep them in a 3-ring notebook. Well. . .the main problem with that is that I never look at it! It stays tucked away on its shelf out of sight. That doesn't really help me. I realized that I need something more immediate. I needed a bulletin board.

Before I even started pricing cork boards and push pins, I realized that I had all the materials to make a ribbon bulletin board. Why go out and buy something that I could just make? That's what this post is going to show you: How to make your own ribbon bulletin board.

First of all, I had this old canvas frame that wasn't being used. You don't have to have one covered in canvas. (But let's face it. If you are female and have friends, chances are you have been to one of those group painting classes and you probably have an outcome of that event at home right now that you HATE, so. . .why not repurpose it?) :) It just needs to be made of wood so you can push staples into it--you could probably also use a decent piece of cardboard. I also grabbed a piece of shiny pink table cloth to cover it, but you can use any fabric. (You may remember that I used this same fabric to make a sewing machine cover.)

I laid the fabric down and cut around it leaving about two to three inches around. That would give me just enough to fold up around the frame.

Then I spayed some adhesive to the back of the fabric. You don't have to do this part, but it helps to keep the fabric from slipping as you attach it to the frame.

Then I folded up the edges of the fabric around the frame.

Okay, I would advise you if you do this to use a staple gun or AT LEAST a normal sized stapler. All we have in our house is this tiny Swingline stapler, and. . .it took a while because about only one in five staples actually took!

This is after all the fabric had been stapled up around the frame.

Next I took some ribbon and diagonally stretched it across the frame. I stapled either end to the frame.

After stapling the ribbon to the sides, I pulled and stapled the tail parts around to the back.

And that's basically it. You just keep adding ribbon in rows until you are satisfied with how it looks.

Be sure to go back the other direction.

Almost finished. I'm pretty proud of how good it looks as I didn't measure distances or anything. Not bad for eyeballing and using an almost worthless stapler!

This is the back. You can see I stapled all the ribbon tails to the back.

The last step was to add buttons to each intersection of ribbon. This just keeps the pictures in place that you tuck into the ribbon.

All done!

Well. . .almost.

Now it's on the wall, and I can easily see inspiring ideas. 

(Right now I'm into collars.)

My plan is that once this is filled up, I can take a picture of it and put that into an archive of sorts, take these down, and start a new board. I plan on doing this twice a year or so. Anyways, we'll see. For now, I like being able to see my ideas easily!

And then the obligatory social media question:

What do you/will you use your bulletin board for?

The End!

Sunday School Craft - Jesus Carpenter Hammer

So, I make the lesson plans for all the little kids at church that are under four years old. They are split into two main rooms and usually their books coincide with the DVDs that we have, but this week, half of them are learning about Jesus being raised by a carpenter and the other half is learning about Jesus being left in the temple as a twelve-year-old. I decided to combine both lessons with this craft: A hammer (denoting the carpentry aspect...which...yes, I realize that Joseph was probably more of a mason than a modern day woodworking carpenter, but...it's gonna be okay. They can learn the more historically accurate aspects of Jesus' life when they get older.) with Luke 2:49 on the handle. Luke 2:49 is the verse where Jesus says, "Why were your looking for me? Didn't you realize I'd be here doing my Father's business?" 

For this craft, I just found a graphic of a hammer, turned it vertically, mirror reflected it and added a verse to the handle. 

For this craft you will need:

Cardstock, tongue depressors (optional), glue, and crayons.

Just cut around the hammers, glue a tongue depressor in the middle, and then glue the other side of the hamer on top. Color before or after. Done!

So...it's definitely irony that will be lost on the little ones, but hopefully someone will make the connection that Jesus had an earthly father and a Heavenly Father, and while carpentry is one father's business, things of God are the other Father's. Maybe it's too deep, but...it's what we're going with, people! If I wanted to get really deep, I could incorporate three nails...yeah...no. Feel free to use it if you need it!

The End!