Fabric Message Board


Greetings! Here's one of the latest projects we've completed, a fabric message board.
One of my sisters-in-law just graduated and we were trying to think of a gift to give her, something kind of cool and perhaps functional. So I came up with the idea of making a ribbon/fabric message board. That way she could display old high school pictures/mementos and new college pictures/mementos. The board we made for her is not the one shown here. Her message board is green (one of her favorite colors and also her high school color) with green flowery ribbons, also criss-crossing in an asymmetrical fashion. The board came in handy during her graduation party; she displayed some of her 4-H ribbons on it.
We made the board using Homasote's 440 SoundBarrier (a 4' x 8' board purchased from Home Depot). Homasote seems like a pretty cool company. Their products are all recycled and environmentally friendly. The 440 SoundBarrier is supposed to be used for soundproofing, but it works well for making message boards. It's sturdy, but soft enough for using pushpins. The fabric was some quilter's cotton (a really neat green transitions fabric; it faded dark to light and had little subtle swirly circles on it) and the ribbons were from Michael's, who has a better selection for fun ribbon than Hancock. After stapling the fabric and ribbons down, we covered the back with some felt, also from Hancock. We also used thumb tacks to secure each criss-cross. Overall, this was an easy project. The trickiest parts are choosing the fabric and ribbon and then laying out the ribbons on the board.
After we made her board we still had 2/3 of the Homasote left, so we made a message board for ourselves, pictured in this post. Fabric and ribbon from Hancock and Michael's, respectively. We still have 1/3 of the 4' x 8' board left. It will eventually be made into another message board (I have no idea what else we would use it for), but we don't have immediate plans for it.
Alrighty...tschau!

Comments

ASLTerp said…
Did you get some cool push-pins to go with your message boards? Either yours or your little sis'? Where did you end up putting the one you made for yourself?
Unknown said…
We did get some fancy purple, green, blue, etc. pins for Betsy's board. We looked at cool pins for our board that looked like typewriter keys, and I thought for sure that Kelly carried them up to the register, but when we got there to check out, she said, "No, I put 'em back."

*Mutters and grumbles about making an other trip to Staples.*
ASLTerp said…
Why do you have to make another trip to Staples? If you were already at the store, why didn't you just go back and pick the push-pins up and go back to the check-out? It all sounds like a lot of muttering and grumbling for no reason, Little Brother.
Unknown said…
Well, fool that I am, I thought that, "I put 'em back," translated to "I didn't really like them or the price, and so I made an executive decision to not purchase them." But it turns out that it actually translated into, "I don't know. I thought you didn't like them, or something."

Comoonikashun. We haz its!
Well, if I remember the trip correctly, the typewriter tacks were pretty cool, but maybe a little pricey and I didn't know if the PIC was super into them at the time. I guess I'll have to pick them up sometime.

You would think that after 37 years together we would be able to figure simple things like this out, but our communication skills are apparently lacking.