As I mentioned in yesterday's Weekly Roundup, I've been slightly obsessed with inspiration boards for about a year. I've had this post planned in my head for well over a month, and it's been written into my blog planner as, dun dun dun, Keep Not Settling's first DIY! Get excited!
Before we get to the do-it-yourself aspect of this post, I wanted to share a few pictures of my favorite inspiration boards with you.
I've always loved the spontaneous look of inspiration boards. Knowing that they've been put together over a period of time, and that they probably won't be the same in a few days, weeks, months. As much as I love consistency, I can really appreciate how inconsistent inspiration boards are. Maybe that's why I like them so much!
After looking at pictures of other people's inspiration boards for so long, I decided to venture out and make my own, smaller, dorm-friendly version. Take a look at how you can do the same (on pretty much any scale)! This DIY is insanely simple.. it took me about 45 minutes!
What you'll need:
- Cork board
- Pillow case
- Frame
- Paint
- Paint brushes
- Hot glue gun & glue
I didn't have a hot glue gun before this project, so I had to buy one. But if I didn't, the total cost of this project would've been about $20.
I started by laying out two pieces of cork board side-by-side and Scotch taped them together. This was only because the frame I chose was rectangular and the cork is square. Then, I traced around the inside of the frame on the conjoined cork boards to get proper sizing.
The next part is pretty straightforward: I cut the cork board into a rectangle.
I repeated this process to create a second layer of the cork board since the individual layers are pretty thin. This ensures that push pins won't go straight through to the other side.
After letting the hot glue gun warm up for about five minutes, I hot glued the two layers of cork together. This was the hardest part, making sure that the corners were aligned and everything was in the proper place without letting the hot glue dry (which takes 10-15 seconds).
I ended up deciding to paint the top of the cork board with one generous layer of white paint. This is only because I picked out a white pillow case to use as the board's cover. Noe that if you're using a dark pillowcase/material, or one that's completely opaque, this step might not be necessary.
While the white paint was drying, I moved on to painting the frame. I used one of my favorite Martha Stewart paint colors, which ended up complimenting the coral triangles on the pillowcase perfectly! I only did one layer of paint on the frame and I wasn't to worried about a little bit of the wood peeking through the paint.
This step was definitely the longest part, given the shape of -- and cutouts in -- the frame.
Once the cork board had dried completely, I placed it into the pillowcase and pushed it to one corner. I took an extra minute to line up the seams properly to make sure that the triangle pattern wouldn't be crooked on the front side. Then, I cut the pillowcase to leave a two-inch border around the board.
The next step was to pull the border to the back side and hot glue it down.
The final step was to attach the cork board to the frame! I did this from the back side by aligning the cork board, adding some hot glue to the backside edge of the frame, and then hot gluing around all 4 edges of the cork board once it was attached to the frame. The last step was to ensure stability, since the two-layer cork was considerably heavy. Note: A stronger glue could be substituted in at this step, but so far I've found that the hot glue works perfectly fine.
And TA-DA! One modestly sized inspiration board perfect for my dorm room. I added some printouts of my all-time favorite pins, an inspirational quote, and some of my recent travel tickets. I'ms sure that as I collect inspirational or interesting items, that they'll make it up on this board.
Let me know if you're going to try this DIY!
Keep not settling,
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