Craft Room Wall Tiles

I have wanted to do this project for quite sometime, I have been saving up supplies and thanks to the One Month Two Win It competition I sat down and finished it, despite not winning this is one of my favorite pieces that I have ever created and even better it is something that I made for me, quite a rare treat. I am completely rewriting this post from what I wrote on the competition and posting better pictures, the reason being because when writing the post for the competition I was focusing on staying completely anonymous, and it totally sucked. My original inspiration for this project came from Pottery Barn Teen with this image.

Trying to start a business I want to make sure that I have everything accessible in one place and upon seeing this I knew that I could make it work for my needs. Being that it was for my needs and that I am not a teenager I wanted to give it a more grown up look and I think I achieved it, with a special thanks to The Graphic’s Fairy.

The first thing I did was I started shopping around for the supplies, I wanted to be able to make this project for fairly cheap, and the total cost can easily be replicated for under $30. I found four cork board tiles on sale at Fred Meyer for $5, I bought them and based everything on the dimension of those tiles, which thankfully were 1-foot by 1-foot.

I had purchased some off-white canvas, for another project (that I won’t be doing), and cut it so that I could cover the corkboard with it, being that the project was wall art I wanted to print an image on it, enter The Graphic Fairy. The problem: these fabric pieces were right around 14 inches wide and my printer will only print 8.5 inches wide. I really didn’t want to use t-shirt transfer, I know it is a fine alternative but I didn’t want that glossy look on my fabric. So with A LOT of pressing I was able to fold down the fabric to fit into my printer onto fabric paper, it was a bit thick but once it took the fabric my printer had NO PROBLEM printing on it. I didn’t know what option to do, and I still don’t think I prefer one over the other, so for two tiles I just stapled the fabric on using a regular stapler and on the other two tiles I hot glued them, both optioned worked fine.

I had my four cork board tiles I knew that I wanted to do nine tiles, I wanted two that were magnetic chalkboards, I knew that I wanted a clock, and I knew that I wanted a dry erase board but I really didn’t want it white. I went to the craft store and found this scrapbook paper, I knew that it would fit beautifully within the other images. I purchased that and some clear plastic that was meant to cover a calendar. I sort of had eight of my tiles planned out. So the next step was to drive the 65 miles to my parents house and have my dad help me out with the logistics of it all, when I showed him what I had and my drawing he quickly wrote down P-P-P-P-P-P-P, Oh yes, Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Production. We sat down and talked and decided that the best option would be to buy some velcro and a white board to hang and mount with, we each had our shopping lists and decided that we would meet back up the following weekend, THE WEEKEND THAT MY PROJECT WAS DO, talk about no time to screw up.

I had issues with finding a cheap metal for my tiles, I had some decorative metal signs that I have never hung up that I was debating parting with, but luckily my dad found something that fit into my budget he found a flat galvanized stove pipe. I cut it down to size by just using some gardening clippers, easy peasy. Wanting to have the tiles all be the same thickness I glued the metal onto some of the white board that I cut down using construction adhesive, I then went outside on the cold, snowy mountain and spray painted them with chalkboard paint.

I took another piece of the white board spray painted it periwinkle blue and then took some more images from The Graphic’s Fairy that I had printed on paper and mod podged them on, this tile was for my clock. I wanted it nice and glossy so I went over it several times.

I took another piece of the white board and Mod Podged the scrapbook paper onto it, I didn’t know how I was going to attach the plastic over it, I finally decided on just super gluing the edges on, the problem with this is that it did stain my paper a bit, it looks a bit water damaged, had I have known it was going to do that I would have just glued it all over and gone for a nice vintage water damaged look, it still works though.

All the tiles are done now I just had to frame them. Again, wanting to keep this project cheap I bought some cheap press board molding, it was also light weight which meant that it wouldn’t be that heavy putting it up on the wall, living in an apartment I wanted to make sure that I didn’t damage my wall. I cut each piece of molding 36-1/4 inches, and remember when I said that I had no time for error, whoops, cut one piece of molding upside down and didn’t have enough extra. Enter my AWESOME DAD he drove the 65 miles north and purchased another piece of molding and drove it back down, while he did this I glued down the 3 sides of molding onto the remaining white board using some more of the construction adhesive and finished the remaining tiles. Once he got back cut the last piece of molding, properly and glued that on. I let it set for a bit removed the clamps and spray painted it with some almond spray paint I covered it a few times and then went to bed.

The next morning everything was completely dry and I started placing my tiles in it, the almond spray paint was YUCK, it was just too matchy-matchy so I took some black acrylic paint brushed is on and it gave it a nice aged look.

I drilled a hole in the middle of the clock tile and set up the clock mechanism placed it where I wanted and then cut out a hole in the back of the whiteboard for the clock mechanism. Every back of the tile had two pieces of velcro on it and that is how they are attached to the frame. It is nice because I can easily switch out the tiles and it makes life a lot easier when the time comes to change the battery out on the clock.

Despite being a LOSER I really do love this piece.