Easy Bulletin Board Makeover

I switched my son & my daughter’s room a couple of months ago and am still working on the details for both rooms.  It seems never-ending but the process is sure fun!  One thing that I have discovered about my daughter is that she is very visual.  I think most kids are like this.  She likes to write herself notes and stick them on the wall.  Draw pictures and stick them on the wall.  Use a tissue and stick it on the wall…. ok, maybe not that one.  But it kind of seems like it.

Exhibit A: What she did within the hour of moving into her new room.

I mean….right?  What is this?  She just got out her scotch tape and started going to town.  Sadly, this is not going to work for me.  Luckily I had a bulletin board that I took out of my son’s room that he no longer needed.  A perfect upcycling project for a fun bulletin board makeover was now in the works for Brynn’s room.  Yay!

Here is what it looked like before.  It had definitely seen better days.

Here is how I transformed it in about 1.5 hours and with about $15 in supplies.  I didn’t invent this idea but I have been looking for a way to try it out.  Love the result!

What you’ll need:

• a bulletin board of some kind (upcycling is the best!)
• spray paint or craft paint to paint the frame
• fabric
• ribbon
• spray adhesive
• hot glue gun & glue
• upholstery tacks
• cording (I found some “craft cording” at Hobby Lobby)

Spray paint/paint the frame of your bulletin board.

Cut fabric to size and use spray adhesive to adhere it to bulletin board.  Measure out lengths of ribbon to criss-cross bulletin board and hot glue the ends in place.

Because it is so hard to get the fabric to the EXACT size of the bulletin board, hot glue the cording around the inside of the frame of bulletin board to give a nice finished look!

Insert upholstery tacks where the ribbons intersect to keep them in place.  (Tip: my tacks were longer than my bulletin board was thick so after I had them all in place I flipped over my board and used wire cutters to snip off a little bit of the tips.  I then put a glob of hot glue over each tack point to hold it in place.  Problem solved!)

I then hung it up where her previous “collage” had been!  My only regret is that I wasn’t super careful with the spray adhesive and I had some globs of it… when I put my fabric over the top it seeped through and discolored the fabric a little bit (which you can see there at the bottom).  It doesn’t bug me a ton but if that kind of thing bothers you then make sure your spray adhesive is even and thin. 

And this is what it looked like after we put back up some of her stuff.  Much more contained now! And she promises that is the only place she will stick stuff… we will see.  🙂

And she loves that she can use push pins, a stapler or just slip things into the ribbons to put them up.

I loved this project!  Upcycling, problem-solving and spray painting….my favorite things. 🙂

Make sure to PIN THIS IMAGE for future reference to makeover your own!