Thursday, October 4, 2012

Being Crafty: DIY Chevron Message Board

I've had this cork-board lying around for ...hmmm... maybe a year? I bought it originally for my dorm room and intended to cover it with black-and-white fabric. Of course, instead, the thing got shoved into the back of my closet. I recently unearthed it, and once again, it was lying around the room, patiently asking for some kind of adornment. Inspiration took its time before it came along and bopped me on the head with its insistence.  

Pinterest helps, though. For a similar look, check out this link.

In the meantime, here is a step-by-step look at yesterday's project.

1. Supplies: corkboard (available in many different sizes at Walmart or any office-supply store); spray paint in two colors (I chose white and pistachio green); blue painters tape.
2. Go over the board with a few light coats of the white paint. When spray painting, several light coats is always better than one heavy coat. Mine has about three coats since the first just looked like a light frosting. While the light touch of color was pretty, it wasn't really the look I was going for. Once the paint has dried, apply your blue painters tape in a chevron pattern.
3. Paint the board again, in your second color.
4. Remove the painter's tape to reveal your chevron stripes.
Now, I wish I could say Viola! And there you go! But I can't because, obviously, my project was not "voila!" worthy. As you can see in the above photo, the top layer of cork peeled off in a few places. Here's why: the white paint was high-gloss finish. Now, I don't have any way to prove this for sure, but I believe something about the gloss finish reacted bizarrely with the cork. The pistachio paint was satin finish and gave me no trouble. So, for future reference and for your own projects, stick to satin and you shouldn't have any peeling.
5. Thankfully, I had some white acrylic paint lying nearby
6. I simply touched up the "peeled" places with the white, it seemed to sufficiently cloak the disaster areas.

I'm still not going to say "Viola!" but I'm sufficiently satisfied to try the project again with different patterns and a different paint type. The message board will at least match my green desk chair--which was the whole purpose in painting it pistachio green.

Thanks for reading! Check back later today for another project!




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