Eff Bomb Crafting: Escort Card Display

Hiiiiiiiii - so I'm back, I'm married and I'm following through on my promise. The honeymoon was great - if you want to know a bit more about it, check out Collected Laundry Lists, my other blog about all the nothing and everything in the known universe.

So today, let's talk Escort Card Board. I had seen tons and tons that I liked and was oddly inconsistent in my preferred style. Sometimes I wanted something simple, sometimes I wanted something classic, sometimes I wanted something western and sometimes I wanted something shabby chic. I came to the same place I always come too - I like all these things, but none of them stick to my ribs (as Bethy May would say). And with price points starting at $150 - well, I couldn't. I just couldn't - besides, what's the fun of buying it when you can make it?

Tools

• Bulletin Board - mine was 4' x 3' and was $20 at Michaels on a Back to School sale. I originally looked at frames and frames and frames but you know, even with Michael's discounts galore, they would still be like $50 or $60 donairs. No thank rue.
• Fabric - on hand. The same fabric I used as backing for my table numbers. I think I got like 10 metres for $20 or something redonculous.
• Paint - tempra worked great for this project, but as usual, whatever you have on hand will do.
• Sponge brushes - to paint with
• Ribbon - Michael's special - that pinky cream ribbon I have about 800 roles of now, because the are 69 cents a roll and I am always worried I'll run out. I am now going to have to wall paper one of the rooms in my home using just pink ribbon.
• Lace - again, on hand. I used the lace for a bunch of things. I think I could 12 metres for $30 (?) and used it on about 10 different projects.
• Stapler - one of the few wedding projects I did that required a stapler.
• Patience - it is a virtue, after all. Physical cost - zero dollars. Mental cost - a zillion deep breaths.

Total Cost: Maybe $30?

Total Time: Hour and a half, with paint dry time.

So we'll start with this picture to give you an idea of how big the bulletin board was, compared to one of the frames I used for my table numbers.

Step 1: Paint that sucker.

I used the sponge brush paint the bulletin board. The board frame had a varnish on it so I was a leetle worried at first about how the paint would stick. It’s funny, because the varnish would only absorb about 80% of the paint, giving it the distressed look without me having to do any distressing or sanding on my own. HA! Victory. I applied on coat, let it dry for half an hour and did a second coat. What did end up happening was that the paint would chip off relatively easily, however it luckily enough kind of just added to the distressed look. Thank Rod.

Step 2: Line that sucker.

My next step was to line the back with creamy taupe fabric I had. This is a pretty obvious step. Cut the fabric in a rectangle big enough to fit the frame then staple it down on the sides. Be liberal with your staples, they won’t hurt it. *Note: for my first go at this, I tried to use little pins but they were too much of a hassle to push into the cork and really, weren’t right for the job. See bottom pic.

Step 3: Measure it out.

Not my usual advice – I know. But I measure out a few things before I cut.

1. First, I figured out how many rows of my little escort cards would fit on the bulletin board.
2. Then I figured out how long the ribbon that they would hang off of needed to be.
3. Lastly, I figured out how long the lace trim needed to be.

Step 4: Slap it together

My ribbon was muchos skinny so I attached it to the cord by first doing a staple directly on top, in line with the ribbon and then a second staple on top of that, making a crooked “x”. I did I think 10 rows of ribbon.

To cover all my staples, I lined the outside edges of the board with the lace trim, seen above. I secured those in the corners with again, first push pins and then finally staples.  Because the lace has a bit more too it, visually, you couldn’t see the staples at all.

FINI!