Burlap Pin Board

I recently started getting the Ballard Designs Catalog courtesy Kristen signing me up when she saw the style was similar to what I was trying to achieve in our home.  Although we could never afford most of their stuff, I love the netral pallet that they have going on and there are tons of good contemporary ideas.  As I was flipping through I saw this picture when I reached the office design section.

http://www.ballarddesigns.com/burlap-message-boards/accessories/office-accessories/195170?defattrib=&defattribvalue=&listIndex=0

I knew I needed to have one in my new craft room...it was perfect for the ambiance I wanted.  And I would need a good idea board for when I started getting into my knit projects.  Only problem was their largest size was only 34" x 55".  Oh and it was $219.  Seriously?

One of our wedding gifts from Chris' coworker, Andy, and his wife, Lisa, was a gift card to Hobby Lobby.  Being from Oregon, I really had no idea what this store was.  When Chris first moved to Utah he actually went in thinking it would be a hobby store full of model planes and paintable military figurines.  Too bad for him it actually turned out to be a Michael's craft store on steroids.  The moment I went in I never wanted to leave.  I could set up camp there and be entertained for the rest of my life.  This place was a giant, two story, craft lover heaven.

I knew I had to focus and not get distracted from my mission.  To the cork board section I went.  They didn't have any ginormous boards like I wanted, but luckily I had Chris at home who I knew could figure out how to put them together.  I grabbed a couple 24" x 36" boards and one 16" x 36"board....64" wide would fit nicely on the wall where I planned to hang it.  The only negative I found out about Hobby Lobby was that they only allow one 40% coupon per purchase.  I was tempted to buy one, then come back in again, but I really didn't feel like being the person who gets caught and the sales people laugh at later.  I grumbled as I paid full price for two of them.

My three boards.

Next stop was JoAnn's where I also had a gift card to from the wedding courtesy my grandma's good friend, Christie, a fellow crafter and quilter extraordinaire.  Burlap just happened to be 40% that week PLUS a 20% off total purchase.  It was just a great day, let me tell you.

I actually left the board frame buying to Chris who went to Home Depot the next day (yes we had another gift card) and got three 6' long skinny pine boards.

First step was to build the frame.  I'm still scared of the saw, so Chris got to do all the wood cutting and nail gunning.

Then he nailed the cork boards to the frame and added one more support board that I had leftover from our canvas frame building project to keep the middle from sagging.

Meanwhile, I cut the burlap so that it would have a two inch overhang on each side to fold and tuck on the back side.

After he was done with that I got to play with the fun staple gun (side note we are not on good terms anymore after stapling my hand the other week...I got a safety talk from Chris).   After making sure every thing was aligned to the grain I started working my way around.  Finally finished, I flipped to see how she looked.

So awesome!  Final touch was to add some white thumb tacks that I found out in one of the drawers in the garage.  That place has many treasures if you search hard enough.

I decided to put a few more on than the Ballard boards had.  About halfway through when my thumbs were ready to fall off I realized that was probably a bad decision.  Too late.

A good hour later she was all finished.  With Chris' help we mounted it up on the wall with some intense hangers.  He then added one of his paper roses I made him forever ago and we stepped back to admire.

The more I add to this room the more I love it.  It's got such a great vibe going!  In case you were interested in how much this ended up costing, here is the breakdown.

Cost breakdown
Cork boards.................$41.17
Burlap........................$4.78
Pine boards..................$9.75

Total                             $55.70  (all on gift cards!!!)

If you add in the extra pine board and what I'm guessing was about $3 for thumb tacks that we already had, you can add $6.25 to that total.

Beats $219, right?