DIY memo board, take two

Hey all! This week is going by SO FAST! Can you believe the weekend is almost here?

If you’ve read this here blog for a while, you know I share the fails along with the good stuff. And sometimes there’s a project that’s not necessarily a fail -- it just doesn’t work the way I had hoped.

Case in point – the DIY memo board in my office:

I showed you how I made it back in January. After I finished, I hung it up, admired it, and then stuck my first pin in to hold up a reminder…and the hives started.

The pin put a huge hole in the beautiful fabric – the fabric that pretty much inspired the whole room. The fabric I LOVE that I do NOT want to have meeeellions of holes in.

Breathe Sarah.

I tried different pins, and again with the hyperventilating.

The fabric I used on my old board worked fine:

I know that one looks a hot mess – it was on it’s last leg. :)

Anyway, that fabric was thinner, so it did fine with the push pins. The new fabric, notsomuch.

Because I really wanted to have a memo board I could actually use…I had to figure out a new way to go about this project.

It finally came to me, in the form of magnets.

And it only took three months (who’s counting?) but I finally got it done. Again.

I picked up a sheet of metal at Lowes that was the perfect size for what I needed. YES! No cutting necessary. Until I got it home and realized they put the wrong tag on it – and it was six inches too long.

I don’t have metal snippers of any kind, but I was determined to not go back to the hardware store again – so I tried our do-it-all scissors…and they worked!:

We LOVE these things – they cut through just about anything. Including metal. ;) Who would have thunk? (You can find them at Bed Bath and Beyond.)

I used plenty ‘o Liquid Nails on one side of the metal sheet:

And centered on my piece of foam:

I wrapped it with the fabric – again. And secured the fabric to the back of the board with hot glue. Again. :)

Then I used my nail gun to nail it onto the back of the frame:

If you attempt this, you could use either the foam board (for push pins) or the metal (for magnets) – you really don’t need both. I just used the foam because I had it, and it made it easy to attach it to the back of the frame.

When I was done, I realized the frame needed just a little somethin’:

And decided it was time to stress a little and do a little distressing:

I always sweat when I do that, even though it’s no big deal – if you sand off too much, you can just touch it up with paint.

But I do always stress. :)

I finished it up (again) by adding a coat of poly to protect it:

And now, it’s finally ready to do it’s job:

For reals this time!

I made some DIY magnets by taking some cute scrapbooking brads and little magnets:

I just took off the “brad” part (they twisted right off) and glued a magnet on the back:

So I finally have a spot to put all of my memos…you know, cause it’s a MEMO board.

Not a sit empty for three months cause you’re going to ruin it if you use it. :)

I still don’t know if it will stay in that spot – it’s convenient, but it depends on how much I put up there. (These were just random things I had nearby.) If it gets too cluttered I may move it across the room.

I’ll live with it for a while where it is and see how I use it. But now, at least I can USE it: