Happy Friday friends! Today I thought I’d show you how I made over a $1 boring whiteboard (purchased some time ago at Ichiban Kan) into a cute message station in my craft space! I didn’t do anything terribly complicated with it, but I am a firm believer in a good coat of paint and what it can do to transform things. This is something that you can easily squeeze into your weekend. I had this whiteboard lying around for about a year before I actually started using it a while ago for my monthly and weekly “to do” list. It worked fine but was a little bit on the plain side…and you couldn’t hang it on the wall! As you can see, making this little board more cute and useful has been on my list for a while.

For this you’ll need:

• whiteboard
• sponge brush
• painter’s tape
• acrylic paint (was on sale for 33 cents at Michael’s last week!)
• newspaper to cover your work area
• plastic lid (not pictured) (optional)
• string/twine to hang whiteboard (not pictured) (only if you want to hang it)
• nail or thumbtack (not pictured) (only if you want to hang it)
• Stapler (not pictured) (only if you want to hang it)

First, wipe off the board and cover the edges of the board section with painter’s tape. You don’t want it to cover the wood — it is just there to catch any stray drips of paint.

Although I try to be neat, I tend to be on the messy side of the spectrum when it comes to constructing or crafting things, so I usually take a few extra minutes to prep my work areas with newspaper and tape off any areas I definitely don’t want painted.

Next, pour your paint (I used a mint green color…of course!) onto a plastic lid or something of the same sort. You could pour it directly onto your newspaper (or an extra sheet of newsprint) but being the aforementioned messy person that I am…I wanted something that I could move. (I am so good at setting things on the “paint area” part of a newspaper. Things like: my project, my elbow, my camera…you get the idea.)

Once you have your paint poured out, take that sponge brush (oh how I love sponge brushes!) and get it nice and paint-y. The rest is pretty much self-explanitory…start painting the frame!

Because the wood frame was kind of old, it was really dry and ready to soak up paint. 1-2 strokes will give you a vintage-y look…

A couple more gets a nice even, opaque coat!

I also decided to paint the front of some clothespins I recently bought…

I think they are so cute! Not as cute as mini clothespins, but I digress.

Next comes the hardest part…let your paint dry. Go wash dishes and disinfect your whole sink while an episode of Hart of Dixie plays. (I just love the old-school southern belle and modern fashionista style of Lemon and Zoey!) Then answer all those e-mails you’ve been meaning to respond to.

Or for something more fun, you could paint your nails in a matching color…since you have to wait for the polish to dry before you can handle things, you’ll definitely leave enough time for the wood to dry! Anyways…you get the idea. I don’t have to tell you how to pass an hour of your time, you probably already have a whole bunch of things you could do lined up.

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If you don’t want to hang this baby up, you’re pretty much done. I thought about finding some fabric tape to separate my board into a “month” and “week” section, but ultimately decided that I liked having a big, open slate.

Alternatively, you could now paint some cute little flowers or birds on the frame. Or some geometric triangles would be cool. Chevrons are another one of my faves. But since this is going into my craft space, I wanted something clean. I’ll be filling up the rest of the space with prints and patterns, and my task list needs to be clean and focal.

Okay, so now we need to hang this thing up….tape down your string (I used the handle from an old Nike bag I had lying around) to the corner and adjust the other side until you have the desired height. Tape that side down…and staple over it. THis might take more than one staple, but it won’t show through on the front so don’t worry.

Next, take your thumbtack/nail/whatever, insert it into your wall, and there you have it! A hanging whiteboard that is a colored your favorite color. Not bad for a $1 whiteboard + $0.33 paint investment!

Now, I have to decide what I want to paint next! I have my eye on a wooden step stool that I have in the kitchen…and I also have some yellow paint…but that will have to wait for another weekend. I am working tomorrow and on Sunday my dad is stopping by San Francisco with my uncle to see me  buy crab for Sunday dinner. Hope you have a great weekend!