I’ve recently been more interested in DIY projects to make our home homier. We’ve been in this apartment for just over a year but I’m still constantly moving things around/adding things. I’ll be doing a post soon on home decor with photos of where we’re at now and tips on how to work on your home while on a budget.

Doing arts/crafts is such a great study break and I love envisioning projects and seeing how they turn out. It’s definitely nice to use the right side of my brain every so often because it’s pretty neglected and as our learning coach once said to me ‘you need an outlet for your creative side’ so here we are!

In college, I had cork boards above my bed with photos, concert tickets, movie stubs, event flyers, etc. but doing that in my ‘grown up’ apartment just felt a little immature so I wanted to do something to class it up. I had this matte teal acrylic paint leftover from a previous project and the cork boards from my college apartment so of course I started painting them during study breaks while I watched TV. Most of the furniture in our apartment is a dark chocolaty brown and I love how the teal looks against it. It compliments the brown really well and also makes the apartment brighter with a pop of color.

I painted six of these squares over a couple days and let them dry overnight. I only did one coat over each of them because I wanted some of the brown of the cork board to peek through to keep that rustic/worn look to it. I used a matte paint for the same reason.

Because we have textured walls, I was worried about finding something that would actually hold the cork boards up and stay and stumbled upon this Scotch roll of mounting tape. I’ve had these boards up for a couple weeks now and haven’t had any issues with them coming down (yet).
I cut 2-3 inch pieces of the roll. It’s essentially a roll of really thick double sided tape so I put one side on the cork boards and then took them over to the bedroom where I was planning to hang them.

I took all the stuff off the dresser and measured how far up I wanted the boards to be from the dresser. I removed the plastic on the other side of the mounting tape and then put them all up, only pressing gently. I’d step back to make sure everything was relatively straight and centered. Once I was happy with placement, I held down each of the boards where the mounting tape was placed for 20-30 seconds each to ensure that the adhesive really stuck to the wall. And the photo below is how it turned out!

Overall, I’m really happy with it. It’s definitely a lot cheaper than having the beautiful message boards you see online. I’d like to invest in one of those when we can afford spending more on decor but for now, I’m happy with this! I may eventually do something to put a border around it to give it a more ‘finished’ look but we’ll see.

I’m currently working on practicing lettering and hope to eventually fill the board with prints of my favorite quotes. I picked up these adorable push pins at Target to put things up on the board. They have these pattens in a great rustic color theme. I almost want to wear them as studs… Also, these glass mason jars with lids were in the dollar section at Target last month! I picked up a couple more to store spices that usually come in baggies.

I hope you’re all having a great weekend! It’s been crunch time for me with finals coming up next week. Because our grades are based entirely on final exams (we don’t have any other tests), it’s definitely really nerve wracking. I figured out my study schedule for the rest of the week last night so I’m feeling much more calm about things but I hope I can actually stick to the schedule! As always, good vibes and prayers appreciated.