Blah Chalkboard to Fun Cork Board!

A few years ago I became enamored by the homemade chalkboards I saw everywhere on the interwebs, so made one for the kitchen. After trying it in a few different locations, it finally ended up at the end of a set of upper cabinets. The frame was purchased at Goodwill a long time ago, and Greg cut a scrap piece of board to fit. I used spray-on chalkboard paint on the scrap, then put it together.

You can see the flat black frame and black chalkboard – kind of boring, but it worked for me at the time. (This was October 2011, “Every day there comes a time when no matter the question, the answer is “Wine”. Yes. Yes it does.)  At first I changed the quote every few months, then eventually it got left longer and longer, and on Friday I erased the “Star of Wonder, Star of Light” from Christmas. This particular chalkboard had obviously lost its charm for me, and it was time for an update.
In the interest of lightening it up and adding some texture, a little spray paint and a few wine corks changed this board completely. Now I love it!

A sanding block was used to distress the frame a few hours after painting, letting some of that black underneath peek out. With the black paint it was difficult to see the floral design, but the white paint actually accentuates that pretty feature.
Flat glass marbles, white thumbtacks, and hot glue all came together to make the pretty push pins. Right now they hold photos of nieces and nephews, but I anticipate this board will fill up with additional fun stuff all too quickly.
I have a Pinterest board just for wine cork crafts if you’d like to take a look at some other ways to use them. (I do save all the corks from the wine we open here, but it takes quite a long time to accumulate the quantities needed for some of these projects. Corks can be purchased online – I got some from a vendor on Etsy – and sometimes a family member will give me a few they’ve acquired. If you have any extras you need to get rid of, please feel free to send them my way.)

If you’ve done something fun with wine corks, I’d love to hear about them!

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