Easy DIY Memo Board & Thanksgiving at Home Tour

If I did a quick poll, my guess is that most of you with kitchen islands (or any flat surface in your kitchen) would say that it is a magnet for collecting papers, keys, sunglasses and other odds and ends.  This is especially true if you have kids and they’re bringing home stuff daily in their back packs, am I right?

My island is the first place to fill up with stuff, and I am constantly on a mission to tame that beast.

Introducing my problem solver:  my DIY memo board.

Well, it’s partially do-it-yourself.

I ordered it from Urban Outfitters and when I bought it, it looked like this:

Cute, right?

It fit my very tight space perfectly and I loved it, but it didn’t function exactly as I had hoped.  I needed a memo board instead of a chalkboard and the existing surface wasn’t magnetic.

Here’s how I transformed it so it would help me tame the “stuff” beast wreaking havoc in my kitchen:

1.  Covered the chalkboard with inexpensive fabric 

I easily popped out the chalkboard by unscrewing the little screws at the back and then cut my fabric to size using the board to measure.

I used a spray adhesive to make the chalkboard surface sticky so the fabric wouldn’t slip off or wrinkle.

 

I wrapped the fabric around the board, being careful to smooth out all of the wrinkles and then replaced it back inside the frame.

2. Added lines of twine

After I inserted and secured the fabric-covered board back into the frame, I measured and then nailed small tacks in to the frame so I could add two lines of twine.

I didn’t nail the tacks all the way down.  I left a little room for wrapping and tying the twine to each tack.

3.  Clipped clothes pins to the twine to hold messages

The final touch was adding some clothes pins so I can clip messages, papers, coupons, etc. to the line.

The beauty of using clothes pins is that I can add as many as I need.  This small change makes this board function perfectly in my small “mud area.”   I’ll be posting more about that space soon so you can see all of my updates that are making my tiny space work hard for my family.

Thanks so much for reading today and please come back tomorrow for the start of a fantastic week of Thanksgiving-related projects, ideas, traditions and recipes.

 

Here is the schedule for the tour — you DO NOT want to miss it!

Monday: