Fun with Scissors and Spray Paint!

When we first moved out here, Zach had some pretty long days, busy with all sorts of trainings and new duties and whatever.  Which meant I was left home alone to be crafty! That was 3 years ago now, so as kinda an anniversary post, here are some projects that I did soon after we moved here.  Yup, another 'finally writing it up' sort of project :)  I don't really have instructions for these, or step-by-step pictures, though, just a lot of chatter about what I did.  

First up, I finally got around to recovering my pin boards.  I've collected pins for years, as swaps at conferences, or as souvenirs from places I've traveled or events I've participated in.  I've got them from all over, and display them on fabric-covered cork boards.  I started with just one, but have expanded my original single board into a whole wall-full! 

The picture above (with the blue fabric) is from our place in CA.  After 3 and a half years in a VERY sunny area, even with blinds on the window, the fabric had faded a good bit, especially on the largest board.  So they were due for a rework.  Also, the colors in the room the boards hang in now did NOT match the pastel blue that worked so well before.  Definitely reasons to rework these.

So, first up, I undid the old blue fabric.  The fabric tucks under the frame around the cork, so just needed to be pulled away.  Once the frames were bare, I repainted them a nice satin-finish black.

I used white-on-white patterned fabric to cover the boards.  I have 3 sizes of boards, the small and medium size ones shown with my pins, and the large one with my necklaces shown further down the post here.  All the board frames were repainted with the same black paint, but each size has a different fabric on them.  Not really noticeable in a picture like this, but I like it in person.  I was hoping to find a black-on-white fabric, but the only ones I could find were cow splotches and large damask prints (too busy and too much black for what I want to display) or tiny polka dots (the right size, but if I didn't get the rows lined up just so, I'd have driven myself batty looking at it - yes I am that nit-picky).  So, white-on-white it was!

Yes, I realize that several of the boards have only a handful of pins on them, but they are also divided up by category, to a mild extent.  So, international pins are on one board, academic pins are on another, military pins are a third, Hard Rock Cafe guitars are another, and sports pins are a fifth.  The two bigger ones are the general pins from US travel (also knitting and Scouts, since those also included US places).  They're much more full now than when this picture was taken. We've been out and about!  :) So yes, there is a method to the madness!

The necklace organizer below was recovered at the same time and in the same way as the pin boards - new black paint and new white fabric.  I used it while we were in CA, but had never covered it, just left it as a giant cork board.  It was hanging in the closet after all.  Now that it's in the room instead of closet, I definitely wanted it to look nicer, so paint and fabric it was!  Even covered, though, mine's still pretty basic.  You can see all sorts of pretty ones on Pinterest, though.  Tons of variation!  The lace-covered ones for hanging earrings are really pretty, but as I don't have earrings... 

The accent L on my necklace board is just a little extra I added.  The letter is one of the 99 cent ones from the craft store (Hobby Lobby, I think), with 3 thumbtacks attached to the back.  This lets the letter act as one giant push-pin and I can position it wherever I wanted on the board.  Then the whole letter-pin was painted black to match the frame.  I just use clear push pins to hang my necklaces on the board.  So much neater than necklaces forming tangles in my jewelry box!

 

So, yeah, not too much in this post, just me being proud of my painting skills and (tiny) organizing efforts. And hey, 3 years in TX now - less than 3 to go!