Whew. That was a long title.
So today I’m going to show you a super simple and fun way to add excitement to your boring ol’ corkboard.
First, do you remember this frame? The ornate, antique one I got for free from the person selling me the antique doors from her 1907 bungalow? *thank you universe* The one I painted white and distressed and placed on my dresser with other white frames?
Well, I changed my mind and have decided to use it to jazz up the corkboard I have in my studio instead (now it’ll be decorative and functional). You know how most corkboards come from an office supplies store with a plain wooden border around it? Well, I determined that if I took off that wooden border that the cork panel would fit in my ornate frame (with a little sawing off of extra cork, that is).
I glue-gunned it together and voila…a new exciting corkboard!
Okay, but you probably came here for the pushpin tutorial. It really couldn’t be easier and took me all of 10 minutes maybe?
First I got those relatively flat silver thumbtacks (I say relatively flat because they do have some curvature – couldn’t find anything flatter). Because of this curve, I found that it was best to use buttons that had an inner curve in the middle – even if it meant I had to use the button upside down so that it could fit relatively flush to the metal. And remember that the first button is the bottom button if you’re stacking, so most won’t be able to even tell if it’s upside down as you’ll have other buttons stacked on top.
I added a drop of hot glue from my glue gun to the larger, bottom button, then put the tack on top (with sharp end pointing up…just till it bonds which is typically less than a minute).
Then I flipped upright and added more glue, another button and repeated one more time until I had 3 buttons glued on top of the thumb tack. I told you this was easy.
Hues of blue and aqua have been my latest obsession so I stuck with this color palette for my board. And now my board not only has a new frame, but fun, customized, even personal pushpins (as these buttons were from my grandmother’s old stash).
Of course you don’t have to use vintage buttons; you can use whatever you have on hand, find funky ones at the flea market or even buy new (but you know me, I’m always trying to reuse before buying new). And if you plan on selling these, I’d suggest skipping hot glue and going to a heavy-duty adhesive like E6000 as glue from hot glue guns can sometimes break off (no biggie if it happens in my home, but doesn’t look good to a customer!).
Have fun!
