Recently I went shopping in downtown McKinney. They have so many cute and intriguing shops on the square. One shop had a table full of message tags. Some funny, some thoughtful, some romantic. They were all clever and interesting. I ended up buying more than I needed.
The tag purchase led to the quandary as to how to display them? I thought of framing them, but decided it would be more fun to change them out periodically.
A trip to my local Walmart gave me a couple of options. I went with the plan of buying a wooden plaque, which I would then paint. At the top of the plaque I planned to glue a clothespin painted to match. The clothespin would be decorated with a big bow and sparkles. To hold the plaque up, I was going to drill a hole in the back of the plaque and insert a 4 or 5 inch length of dowel rod.
The plaque I loved was MDF (medium-density fiberboard), but since I wasn’t sure how it would respond to paint, hot-glue and drilling, I skipped it. The next piece I noticed was more boring in design but would have worked. Then I saw the cute little easel. It was white board on one side and dry erase on the other.
I already had the clothespin, so I picked up a couple of items for decoration. Altogether it was about $11 and took me 15 minutes to make. I think it is cute and will be a fun addition to my desk at work. I hope the other staff members will enjoy reading the quotes and funny sayings.
If you want to make a message board, you will need:
1. A small chalkboard/dry erase easel ($3.47)
2. Decorations. I purchased burlap ribbon for $2.97 and burlap flowers ( a package of two was $3.97)
3. Hot glue gun
4. Stapler and/or needle and thread
First, glue your clothespin to the top of either side of the easel (or you could do one on each side). I liked the black side as a background for the cards I wanted to display.
Then I created a small cockade or rosette out of the burlap ribbon. The ribbon had wire edges, which made it easy to manipulate and for it to keep its’ shape. I stapled it a few times in the center to hold it together. For extra security, I put a few stitches in it as well. I turned under the end of the ribbon and stapled it down.
I hot glued the small flower I had purchased onto the center of the cockade. Once it was cooled, I hot glued the back of the cockade to the clothespin. Voila! I had a cute little message board.
