I have more to say! I didn't want to make an extra long post so I thought I would split the content in two. I have been doing other crafty things, mainly making a notice board. A while back I read on one of the many blogs I have bookmarked that someone had make a notice board by covering an artists canvas in fabric. "Genius!" I thought. That would be perfect for making a little board to hang next to my desk, said desk is normally filled with clutter and post its but this way I can keep it a bit more tidy. Art canvases aren't that cheap by the way, I got mine from a cheap bookshop that has previosuly been mentioned and it was £3.99, 'that's not expensive!' I will hear you cry but for me that is, its a ball of yarn! I then also got some red and white stripey fabric as my room is red and white stripes, the colours are a bit bright but its all I could find.
The construction was relatively easy, I simply stretched the fabric over the canvas on my desk and stapled it in place with one of those staple guns used to staple into the wall and things, like at school. This bit was easy but sometimes a little frustrating if the fabric wouldn't lie flat, for example I ironed it before doing this and it then got a massive crease in it half way through because it folded while I was stapling.
Here it is after I had stapled on some ribbon too, I needed 3m to finish it, I originally got 2m of ribbon but as you can see from this picture I didn't quite have enough. Luckily I got this from Boyes so there was plenty more, and it was only 30p per meter too so it wasn't exactly breaking the bank to get more. I didn't measure where to put these or anything, I just did it by eye, stapling them at one end and then stretching them tight around the canvas and stapling at the other end. The ribbons if you haven't guessed are great at holding up bits of paper that you don't want to put a pin through, they tuck in and the tension keeps them in place.
Here it is all finished yesterday, complete with post its to show how grippy the ribbons are.
And here is a pin so you can see that it does indeed hold pins nicely, especially my little ladybug ones, which were from Paperchase a couple of years ago (they might still do them, I bought about 5 packs so that should suggest people want them!) Like the little bow? I did that with the left overs of ribbon from the first day :)