A few of the kids in our youth group have been firsthand witnesses to the entire journey of my blog. Yes, they used to make fun of me and I’ll admit that the notion of writing a blog sounded a little dorky to me, too, until I got sucked in. They tolerated me celebrating over 17 followers, they were excited for me when I had my first magazine feature, they watched my house as it’s evolved, they brought me furniture and antiques their families were getting rid of and they have helped me move furniture, strip chairs and glitter letters. Last week, one of our former youth guys, Sean, who’s now almost done with college, brought his girlfriend to my house for a little crafting with “Miss Mustard Seed.” Having played hours of X-Box and eaten many meals at our house, he has the hook up. Emily is an Anthropologie and Pinterest junkie. She had seen a cork board used to store jewelry and wanted to make one herself to save some money and get the exact look she wanted. So, Sean and Emily showed up at my house with a frame and some cork board to spend a “crafternoon” together. (My sister-in- law introduced me to that term. Thanks, Tai!) It was actually a craft-evening (craftning?), but that doesn’t sound as nice.
We started out by taking apart the clearance frame and Emily painted it in ASCP Antoinette, a soft ballet pink. The frame had a laminate-like finish, so ASCP was a perfect option for it.
Emily had purchased cork tiles, which weren’t the right size for the frame, so we had to figure out how to make them fit in the frame and have the seams look good. We settled on a herringbone pattern. After mulling over our cork-cutting options, my husband and Sean decided to try to cut the cork with the chop saw and it worked like a charm! Like buttah.
They cut each tile into four 3″-wide strips. Emily and I fired up the glue gun. Once we found the center point on the cardboard insert that came with the frame and figured out how the strips were going to fit together, we hot-glued them into place.
The boys cut off the excess cork, so it would fit perfectly into the frame. Since the cork was a bit thicker than the frame, we used some Duck Tape to hold it in place and Emily will use velcro strips to hang it in her dorm room.
It turned out so cute, didn’t it? I love how the herringbone pattern adds a little interest and makes it a bit more special than a regular cork board.
Emily transformed ordinary push pins with bottle caps and old buttons and is using them to hold her necklaces. Her stud earrings will just stick into the cork for accessible storage.
I mostly work on furniture these days and don’t do a lot of “crafts”, so it was fun to work on a project like this…
…especially with the next generation of crafters.
