Craft-tastic! Bulletin Board

Image Credit: Mamacos, Cape Town

Above is a beautiful photograph I found for a company that does reupholstering in Cape Town.

I watch a fair amount of HGTV and the folks on those shows are always doing stuff involving staplers and fabric and they make it look pretty easy to reupholster just about anything.

Since I'm often dubious about the actual time needed to do crafts like this vs. the time it takes thanks to the magic of television, I've always been hesitant to try the technique myself.

Despite my doubts, I thought I might try something easy and cover a boring bulletin board that I bought for my office.

The "stains" in the fabric are just a bit of excess water from the iron!

Taking a piece of scrap fabric I had stowed away - it is a simple cotton that originally came from IKEA about ten years ago - I used a regular stapler to attach it to the back of the bulletin board. I followed the technique I've seen suggested on TV where you start on the long side in the middle, tack down in a few spots and then pull the fabric gently into place and work from the opposite side and then around the rest of the perimeter. For the corners, you just fold the edges over like gift wrap and staple everything into place.

Total time on this was extremely minimal - I think it actually came out in the twenty minute range including giving a quick ironing to the fabric before stapling.

My cool new office closet turned into a printing and filing station!

The results? It looks very simple but pretty good in my opinion. I probably could have used a more interesting fabric and done some embellishing with ribbon, etc., but then it would have been much more involved and I was in for the quick and dirty crafting here.

The cost was about $25 for the bulletin board and the fabric was a free leftover from another person. If you are not crafty, there are lots of this type of thing for sale on Etsy.com from $15 to $150.

Now, all I need are these super funky push pins for my board. My birthday is coming....

From Etsy.com seller Pegsboards

DIY Rating: 9  

The test run on this came out at 20 minutes, 

so it's an easy craft and way cooler 

than a boring old cork board. 

However, as I always say, if you're not a crafter yourself, 

Etsy has some great "home faked" options too!