Sprucing Up a Plain Corkboard on the Cheap

I wanted a couple corkboards in our home office for sticking up reminders, photos, and other goodies. I spackled way to many holes when I painted the room a few weeks ago and I wanted hubby to have a place to hang his momentos without putting more holes in the walls.

I picked up a couple cheapo framed corkboards at Wal-Mart for $6 each. They needed a little bit of decoration though because they were a bit blah.

So I taped newspaper over them and sprayed on a nice coat of glossy white Rustoleum spray paint.

When I pulled off the paper, I noticed some of the paint leaked under. Oops.

So I went to my scrapbook paper stash and decided to use some paper to add a nice border to cover up the spray paint that strayed from the frame. I measured out the frame and discovered that the inside dimensions were 16" x 22" so I needed 136 inches total of paper to cover the edges of two frames. Using 12x12 paper with 1" strips would be 144 inches (Twelve 1" strips x 12" per strip). Did I lose you with all the math? So basically I figured out one sheet of paper would be enough.

The 1" strip looked a little too wide so I went with 3/4". But one sheet of paper gave me plenty of paper strips to cover the inside edge of both frames. The first paper I tried in the background was a little too girlie with the flowers. So I went with the brown paper with the white tree branches. Because hubby thinks the house is a little too girlie already. And marriage is all about compromise. Even though the flowered paper matched better.

I started gluing the strips down. At the end of each paper strip, I tried different pieces to see which ones would line up best with the pattern of the tree branches.This kept the seams of the edges from being too obvious.

After only a few mintues of cutting and gluing, I had two prettier frames.
Project cost:
-2 frames at $6 each = $12
-1 can spray paint = $3
-1 sheet scrapbook paper = free!

Total cost = $15  Making something plain and functional into something happier and prettier=priceless

Linking up with DIY day on A Soft Place to Land


 
And Metamorphosis Monday on Between Naps on the Porch

And joining up with From the Same Nest

  

And then "I made it without my hubby" on Shanty 2 Chic.

And Transformation Thursday on Shabby Chic Cottage