Dwelling Cents: Magnetic Bulletin Board

Happy 4th of July!

I've been holding out on you. This project has been finished for at least a month, and I keep forgetting to snap some photos of it to share with you all. I saw this bulletin board made by the ever creative CentsationalGirl, and had to give it a try. It seemed to be the perfect thing to put in our new office.

I used CentsationalGirl's directions as a guideline, and made some changes. Here's what you need:

A large artist's canvas (found mine at Michael's, 3' x 4')
A 10 foot roll of aluminum flashing (I got mine at Lowes for about $10 dollars. I chose this because of the cost, and because the aluminum was flexible and could be bent)
Decorative ribbon
Hot glue gun
Thin wooden boards, approximately 3 feet long (Optional. I used some left over "battens" from our board and batten project).

Here's my canvas. I had to do this on the kitchen table so my furry side kick didn't intervene.

Next, stretch your flashing out on the floor and measure off three 34" sections. Cut. (And if you're me, measure 3 times and cute once.) I just used a heavy duty scissors.

Shimmy (very carefully- the edges are SHARP!) each piece underneath the wooden slats of your canvas. Since that was a confusing sentence, here's a picture (worth a thousand words, anyway):

It took me quite a bit of maneuvering to get this right. Since I bought the flashing in a roll, it was kind of wavy even after stretching it out in the canvas. You can tell a little bit from the photo.

Here's what it should look like:

Since the metal was wavy, there were some parts that were farther away from the canvas and didn't hold a magnet (does that make sense?). I wedged some thin boards under the existing frame to push the metal closer to the canvas cover. Then I hot glued them into place. This step is optional.