Why Should Teachers Have All the Fun?

As reported earlier...it is back to school time for our kids due to a year-round school schedule. This time of year just happened to coincide with the over-due over haul of my crafting room. As any true crafter knows, the best way to clean up the craft room is to finish at least 5 of your unfinished projects.

I did that.

Up next on the old to-do?

Examine odd items I've been holding on to then use or toss in the trash.

The first thing I saw was a long rectangular frame that my mom picked up at a garage sale. The frame had a maple look and the picture was paper-pieced flowers and bees. Not uncute, but too outdated, too cute for me.

I took the frame, removed the glass and painted it black with acrylic craft paint.

Next I saw this large roll of cork paper (3 mm thickness) and I decided to make them into a bulletin board with unusual dimensions.

I took the glass from the frame and used it as a pattern to score the cork paper. Cork paper isn't very thick so I did this three times to create enough support for anything I wanted to stick in there.

The paper only needed a light scoring and then it was ready to break easily along the lines.

I layered the three pieces of cork paper and replace the backing on frame sans glass.

I finished off this cute project with a cork paper flower. This cork paper is 1 mm thick and slips easily into a paper punch (EK Success made this punch).

The red button finished it off nicely and then it inspired another idea! I needed pins for my cork board. I used a wire cutter to remove the pinhead off a regular sewing pin (seems I have an abundance right now (may be they multiplied on there own when they saw what great homes I had made for them). Next I found two identical buttons, stuck a glue dot (I use the Glue Dots brand) on each of them and sandwiched the pin in between. Here they are on the board. Simple practical and I didn't have to buy anything new for any of it!