Bulletin Board Revamp

I've been showing you some of the fun we've had in redoing my two oldest daughters' bedroom.  Here is the Big Reveal and then I showed you how to make do or do without by repainting and splitting my other two daughters' bunkbeds.  Today's post is how to take a plain old boring, cheap, bulletin board and make it a lot more fun.

I started with a cheap, I think it was around $5, plain brown bulletin board I found at Kmart.  I knew I'd have to prime the frame before I painted it since it was such slick finish, so I just sprayed the whole thing with the gray primer.  The walls in their room is gray so it would blend in more than sticking out with the brown cork.  Then I painted it with a turquoise acrylic paint.  I distressed it a little and sanded some edges.  I then planned on aging it a little by rubbing on watered-down black paint.  Well, I did one side, and it was ugly.  So rewind, painted the turquoise again and resanded/distressed that side.  Now I was back to cuter than what it was to begin with, but not cute enough.  I started looking for flowers online and came across this great tutorial.  This was perfect! I thought I'd make a couple and do a little grouping in the corner.  However, after I made it, it was much bigger than I thought and one did just fine.  So here's how:



I cut one 12"x12" sheet of paper into 1" strips. Separate them into 2 piles, 6 in each, and staple in the middle. 

Glue one set of strips into the other set of strips.  Now you have one big set together.

Now run a strip of glue on the inside of the first strip and bend (not crease) to the inside.  Keep going until they're all glued down.  This gets a little tricky as some of mine would start popping up.  However, I found as I kept going, if I squeezed it down for a second and was careful not to keep touching it afterward, they held.  Apparently, this glue needs some drying time to make it permanent, it hasn't come apart yet.

 So this is how it turned out when I was done.  Then you just kind of bend the petals a little, fluff a little, and glue some together where needed. 



 I was still having a hard time getting the two sections to stay together. That's when I realized in the beginning, you don't really need to glue the two sections together. Just glue down each side of petals and then glue the two sections together, it might be a little easier. I finished it off by hot gluing a button (mine had a shaft) in the middle of the two sections. This let me glue the two sections together really well. Then I just glued the flower onto the corner of the bulletin board. Viola!  As I said, I was a little leery of how well this would hold together.  But after my husband had to drill out the holes in the back (another story) and wasn't really careful with the cuteness on the front, it all held together.

 Perfect place for my girls to hang up all their handouts and other things from church.

As I said, I started out with a 12"x12" paper, and the end result was a 6" flower.  So adjust if you want smaller flowers.  It's also a good idea to use a double-sided paper, then you get cute on the inside and out.  These are so easy to make and really cute.  They would be a great accent to top off a present or other things.  What could you do with a flower like this?

Partying with:
Making the World Cuter
Sew Can Do
Sumos Sweet Stuff
Crafts Keep Me Sane
Be Colorful
Ninth Street Notions
Delicate Construction

I entered this into the 31 Days of Spray Paint. Crossing my fingers!!

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