#TBCCrafters Craft Hop - Upcycled Cork Board

Check it Out!  If you have visited my blog before and checked out my crafts, you know that I love to upcycle stuff!  I get such joy from taking old and worn out items and turning them into items that are useful and look good.  I have been thinking about creating myself an area that I can put my blog related papers, cards, info and so forth so that it is visible and all in one place.  I had this cork board that I purchased at a yard sale about a year ago.  I got it for like $2 because it was broken on one end so I haven't used it yet.  I stuck it in the closet and pretty much forgot about it.  I got this old crate lid from my neighbor Jessie along with some other pieces of wood that I wanted for some other projects.  She was like, "Dawn what can you do with this, is it worth anything?"  Well of course it is I say!! lol  

So when I got it home and dusted off, I thought about that old cork board.  So I brought it up and wouldn't you know, it was the perfect width to fit right inside that crate lid!! Oh yes, that crate lid was definitely worth something to me, it was going to be my new blog board!

I first needed to paint that crate lid to make it look a little more attractive and so it would stand out against the dark blue wall that I planned to hang it on.  So my first step was to sand the rough edges and give it a couple of coats of white paint.  Step 2 was to prepare my cork board.  Since it had a metal edge still on 3 sides, I had to remove it.  Using a drill I was able to back out the screws and remove the remaining metal frame.  Then I simply used my big ruler and a box cutter to trim it to the needed length.  Step 3 was to pop it into the crate frame.  It was such a tight perfect fit, I didn't even need glue or screws!  

Once I got my cork installed I realized that there were holes in the sides where those screws were so I used some blue ribbon, that matched my wall color to line the inside where the cork met the frame.  I hot glued it down and then used a blinged up tack in each corner to finish it off.  My base was finished but of course it was just too plain for me so I decided to embellish it a bit.

 

Since I wanted to use this for storing information for my blog, I knew I would need some pockets for cards and things and some tacks and clips for papers and photos and such.  Using denim, clothespins, scrapbook paper, tacks, gemstones and buttons along with glue I created a variety of embellishments for my board that would also make it more functional.

I used pockets cut from old blue jeans as my storage pockets.  I simply hot glued them down at the bottom of my board.  You could of course not glue them down, so they could be moved around, but I wanted mine to be permanent and secured.  I added a pretty denim flower to the center pocket.  To make this flower I cut leaf pieces from a lighter denim and using a needle and thread created a pinwheel from a strip of darker denim and a pinwheel from lace.  Then I layered all these pieces and added a button and small gemstone to the center to finish it off. 

I also created some functional clothespin tacks by cutting scrapbook paper to cover the top of one side of a clothespin and gluing it down and then glued a tack onto the back.  I used a bandanna patterned paper to create a country look with the denim.  Glue Dots work great for this.

Using some shorter denim strips I created some fan like pieces and added a star button to decorate the corners of the frame.  Since it was a crate lid, the corners had some pretty large gaps that paint wouldn't fill in so I wanted to hide them.  I dyed some of the lighter denim pieces so I could add that red color in. Then I just hot glued the pieces on the corners.  

To create my blinged up tacks I simply glued gemstones to the tops of flat tacks with Glue Dots.  They are strong and permanent and much prettier than those plain old tacks!  

The top part of my board was super plain so I wanted to create a banner that would fill it in.  I used string but only had white so I dyed it red with my Scarlet Rit Dye.  Using the same scrapbook paper that I used on the clothespins I created some bandanna pieces for the banner.  I cut strips, folded them in half and then cut them to a point.  To get them to look more like fabric, I crumpled each piece up and unfolded them before I glued them to my string piece.  I also used some of the coin pockets that I had cut from my old jeans.  I glued them to the string banner as well.  These little pockets can be used too!  

I really loved how it turned out and it looks perfect on my wall!  What do you think?