Easy Friday project- fabric bulletin board

I have had this bulletin board since college, maybe even before that. It came from Michael’s; I remember buying it so I could put fun pictures up in my dorm room. It started off as your standard 18''x 24'’ plain cork board with the wood frame.

BORING! So in my infinite wisdom, a couple of years after college I used some leftover fabric my mom had from when my dust ruffle was made to jazz up my bulletin board. I stapled the fabric all around the edges and then I just hot glued some grosgrain ribbon over the staples all the way around the edge for a cute trim and to hide the staples! Great, right?

Yeah it really was. But then it stayed like that for 10 years and even moved with me like 4 times! Why I didn’t ever decide to re-do it before now I’m not sure! But then I saw a super cute fabric covered board in one of my FAVORITE fabrics just the other day on Honey We're Home and it completely gave me the inspiration I needed to redo my little bulletin board, AND get this- I already had some fun fabric left over from the fabric I bought to frame for my new gallery wall (which you'll here all about next week)

So I went to work carefully cutting my fabric and I was about to start stapling my fabric on, but I stopped. All the frames I have seen on fabric’ed bulletin boards have been white. How cute would this fabric look against a white frame- it would pop so much more right? So I grabbed my bottle of Rustoleum white glossy spray paint and went to work. Two thin coats later I had a cute little white frame.

And the spray that landed on the actual bulletin board doesn’t bother me because I’m never going to use it without fabric on top anyways! Then in an attempt to learn an easier, err faster way to do this little project I ran up to Hobby Lobby to get some spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the board- this way I can skip the ribbon step right? WRONG… the only spray I could find at Hob Lob was temporary AND it was $15 for a tiny bottle. I’m sure I could have found some at Michael’s or another craft store but I am impatient and I wanted to work on this project NOW!  So I opted for my original ribbon method instead. I LOVE IT and this way- I don’t have to be nearly as careful when I cut the fabric because I’ll have ribbon covering up any mistakes! I found this pretty chocolate brown velvet ribbon that was 50% off so it came out to $1.50 a spool

 (I got two just to make sure I had enough) So I’ll just hot glue this around the edges after I staple down my fabric.

shh- don't tell- this is black because i forgot to take a picture of the ribbon and they don't have the brown on the website (but it is actually at the store) photo from Hobby Lobby

Here’s my method for the cute fabric bulletin board- while not the only one- this is just what worked for me

1.Cut fabric to be a little larger than your bulletin board- watch where your pattern will go before you cut so you can put the parts you like best on the front and center area of the board.

2.       Fold the excess fabric under and staple the fabric down just inside the bulletin board frame using a light duty staple gun. Try to make sure the fabric is straight as you go around the outside of your board and pull to make sure that the fabric is taut the whole time you are working so you don’t end up with any fabric pouches in the center.

3.   Get that hot glue gun out and turned on. Then measure and cut ribbon for all 4 sides of the board. When the glue is hot- just run a bead of the glue all the way down the bulletin board just inside the frame. This is to cover up the staples. But really, you can skip this step if you like, the staples are barely visible anyways!

Till you're done: