Room Makeover-Project 1: French Memo Board

I have had this old french memo board for 13 years.  It was in my guest room years ago, was used in my office for a few years and then for the last 2 years has done its duty in my daughters room. 

Needless to say-it was getting stained, stretched and needed a bit of makeover magic.

I went in to see Maddy at Fabric Land in Orange (love her!) and she helped me find just what I needed for this project.

We used a very fine, soft white cuordoroy fabric for the base with a double sided glossy black satin ribbon and a gorgeous raven black pleated trim.  Add in button covers and $17.00 later I had everything I needed for this makeover.  Not bad for a totally custom look!  Here's how the finished piece turned out, scroll down for pics and step by step instructions.  Total time to complete was 45 minutes plus shopping time.

Step 1 was to remove the old picture hangers from the back-so I used a tiny screwdriver and took those off.  (Hint: I always put these types of parts in a ziploc so I don't loose the matching screws, etc.)

Next, I needed to remove the buttons and the ribbon.

The buttons pried off easily-they were hotglued on.

Here are the buttons popped off-I threw them away since I was going to recover custom buttons

for the new piece.

Next up was the stapes. I pried them out using a flat head screwdriver and plyers.

This took the most time because the piece was particle board and I didn't want to ruin it getting staples out.

Then I started to remove the ribbons-you can see how stained and gross the board had become when I

started moving the ribbons out. EWWWHHH!

My trusty pliers.

Next I flipped it over and removed the staples that were holding the ribbons in place.

Then I spread the new fabric over the board and cut the piece to size and ironed it smooth.

Note, I did not pre-wash this fabric which is probably a good idea to do before you start a project.

Next, I tried to use my staple gun to staple the fabric but my staples were too long and I stapled through into my coffee table-whoops!  So I switched to my hot glue gun and it worked perfectly.

I was careful to stretch the fabric smooth and work from the center to the opposite side, and back and forth.

Next, I positions my ribbon and stapled it just where the buttons would go and then I just tied it around the back.  (This step is hard to describe, but there are a ton of patterns you can make with the ribbon-I just made two loops and put them on like the gold elastic on a Sees Candy box and tied them tight.

Next up was another staple to criss-cross for strength. These are the points that the buttons will go on, so they will be covered.

Next up I made my daughter do the button covers.  These things are hard to do and drive me crazy but her little fingers are perfect :)

While she did the button covers (you can see her tiny little hands in the back working hard!)

I hot glued the pleated trim around the edges.

Then voila, hot glued the buttons on the points and it was done and done!