Breakfast Tray Turned Corkboard

In less than one week the Noah's ARC Design Challenge will be complete and up in Salvation Army stores throughout Orange County!  On judgement day (this Saturday the 13th), Westwood College will be presenting their design in Orange (180 S. Tustin Blvd.), The Art Institute will show off their space in Fountain Valley (26229 Brookhurst St.),  Saddleback College will unveil their work in San Clemente (2727 Via Cascadita), and my team from Interior Designers Institute will reveal our finished nursery in Huntington Beach (17362 Beach Blvd.).  So if you're local, stop by between the 13th and the 29th to see how all these fun projects come together and the amazing transformations created by these four design schools using Salvation Army donations and a little (well... actually A LOT) of elbow grease.  

Today we're busily working away to get a wall stenciled, furniture painting finished up and moved into the space. I'll be doing a review of an awesome stencil from Royal Design Studios soon and showing you lots of other DIY projects this week as we sprint to the finish line of this challenge.  For today, here's a project that turned a breakfast tray into an adorable cork board...

I found this pretty little breakfast tray at the Salvation Army and love the scalloped edge detail for our nursery.

Then I found this pack of small cork sheets and the idea came to me!

I could make it into a pin board for kid's art and display it in the gallery wall that I'm creating.  I have been thinking... I wouldn't recommend putting a pin board in a nursery, but since these items can be purchased from the Salvation Army for any room, and cork was at hand, a cork board would be alright.  If I were actually making something for a nursery of my own, I'd probably use clothes pins or something that would stay on the board instead of little tacks that could get misplaced or fall off.  

That being said, here's how I made it...

First I removed the legs and broke off the base with a hammer.  It damaged the rest slightly, but I fixed that easily with a little wood glue.

Then I painted it with a few coats of "Charisma."  I had Rachel do the final coat with the air compressor gun to get a smooth coat over all the angles and holes.

I cut two pieces of cork to fit inside. For symmetry, I cut them both so that the seam would be in the middle.

Finally, attached saw-tooth picture hangers to the back...

 I found that it made it easier to attache by taping the bracket down first.