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!