D-I-Y Picture Board (part 4 of the fridge organization series)

If you've been following the "fridge organization" series, you know that we made frames, weathered them, filled one with a magnetic board...and now we have one more left to fill. This one is going to be the picture board!



I've always thought that the picture boards covered with fabric and ribbon were pretty cool, but I never made one. Until now. Here's what I used:

• Foam Board
• fabric (I bought 1 yd./$3 at JoAnn, but only used a little over half)
• elastic (I used ponytail elastic from pickyourplum.com, but you could also use ribbon)
• Mod Podge /brush
• frame
• staple gun
• scissors
• yardstick/ruler

I measured the inside of the frame and cut the foam board to fit. Or at least I thought I did. This is what happens when you measure once, then cut. At night. When you're tired. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Luckily, that part will be hidden by the frame, so I just taped a piece to fit and moved on. But you might want to skip this step and just measure twice to be sure before you cut...


Next I put the fabric face down and laid the foam board on top of it. Then I cut the fabric, leaving a 2" selvage all around the edges. I applied Mod Podge around the edges of the board, then flipped it over onto the back side of the fabric.


Like with the magnetic board, I then cut small squares out of each corner of the fabric so that when I folded it back over the board, the corners would be smooth.


I applied Mod Podge to one side of the board, then folded the fabric back over it - making sure the fabric was tight, smooth, and even. Then I repeated that for the remaining 3 sides.


Fabric-covered board - back and front:


Now for the tricky part - applying the elastic. I had this cool elastic that I got from pickyourplum.com, so I knew I was going to use some of that:


Since I had never made a picture board before, I had no idea how I was going to do this. I decided to make two "bands" - I stretched the elastic around one corner, across the board to the opposite corner. I pulled it tight, but not so tight that it lost all elasticity. I added an extra inch, then cut the elastic.


I turned the elastic to the "wrong" side, then hand-stitched then ends together.


Then I repeated this process to make another "loop" for the other two corners of the board. This is what the "loop" looks like on the board:


Obviously, I needed another strip of elastic on each of the 4 corners. I decided to cut single strips and just hand-stitch them to the fabric on the back of the board. After arranging the looped elastic to make everything equidistant, I measured the distance between the strips (it was 4.25"). Measuring 4.25" from the last strip of elastic, I placed pins to mark where the single strip should go.


I held one end of the elastic strip in place while I tacked it onto the back of the board - then stretched it across to the opposite side of the corner - and tacked the other end to the back. I checked my measurements a couple of times to be sure everything remained equidistant. Then I repeated this for the other 3 corners. I know it sounds like a lot - but it only took a few minutes to do it.


When I flipped it over, I was pretty pleased with the results!


I placed it in the frame, and since there really wasn't enough room for any backing, I just used the staple gun to hold the board in place.

How cute is that? I love it!!


Picture board: $5.70
Frame: $5.32
Total cost of framed picture board: $11.02

Be sure to check out tomorrow's post - Part 6 in the fridge organization series: Corkboards, Keys, Basket, & Clipboard! Have you made a picture board? Leave a comment or snap me on Snapchat - I'm enjoythevue!