A while ago I saw Emily Clark do a post on a huge memo board that she made for her son. I knew that I wanted something to go on the “backsplash” of my desk in my office and thought that this would be a perfect solution!
So right before we moved in I headed to Lowe’s to buy some insulation sheathing. Mine looked different than Emily’s did but I figured it didn’t matter (and it doesn’t). I bought the cheapest one there and asked them to cut it to my measurements for my area for me. While they looked at me kind of weird for buying insulation sheathing in ballet flats and asking them to cut it to a non-normal size, they did it with a smile!
Last week I
finally got around to actually covering the sheathing with fabric. If you remember from my
office inspiration board the colors in the room were gray walls with pink and black fabrics. So I went shopping through my piles of fabric and came up with a pink and white seersucker that would coordinate perfectly. PLUS, I could probably get away without ironing it since it was seersucker. That’s what I call I double win!
So I assembled my required items. My insulation sheathing cut to my dimensions, a piece of scrap fabric that was able to cover the sheathing plus 3″+ on all sides, and a staple gun and extra staples.
I started by cutting my fabric to about 3″ on all sides of the sheathing. If you’re short on fabric you can definitely do less, just make sure that the fabric can wrap to the back and that there’s enough fabric on the back to staple.
In a move that would make my engineering professors at college shudder, I never measured anything and just eyeballed the whole thing. I started with one corner of the long end and put a staple in and then tried to keep the same seersucker stripe along the edge as I continued to staple one entire long side. Is it perfect? Definitely not, but unless you come, sit, and stare at it for a while, you’re not ever going to notice!
After I did one long side, I flipped the board to get it to the right tautness. Again, I picked a spot near the middle, make sure that I liked how the fabric was pulled along the front, and put in my first staple. I again tried to keep the same seersucker line on the edge as I stapled down the other long side.
When I got to the corners I decided to treat them as a present. I tucked the corners in and stapled them down. I did both corners on one end first.
After stapling the corners, I folded the end edges up and stapled along them. I went back around my board to staple in any areas that I felt weren’t being held as tightly as others and then I was done!
I brought the board downstairs and wedged it into my space. Since there are electrical outlets under the upper cabinets and since the board was the same size as my space, I didn’t secure the board, it’s just sitting on my desk. If you are going to be hanging it,
Emily suggested using monkey hooks.
I love the pop of color that it gives my office since the shade is up high. And it is the perfect surface for tacking up inspirational pieces, pictures, and ideas that I come across. Pins stick and hold in in perfectly! And for less than $10 (since I used fabric and a staple gun that I already had), you can’t beat the price!
