ART Clipboard Display

Now that Emma is in PreK, she brings home a ton of school work and art work she does in school daily.  So far I just put it in a canvas tote to sort later to see what to save and what I can throw away.  Every once in a while one of the sheets makes it to the frig.  For being 5 she does some cute, fun stuff and I would love a better way to display her art work.  I searched pinterest and found a few different ways to do it.  I was thinking maybe to put string up kind of like a clothes line and display her art on the wall that way, but wanted a more organized way to display it.  I found some people have covered clipboards and figured this would be the best way for me to do it!  Cute and organized.

I bought 6 clip boards and 1/2 yard fabric in 3 fabrics that went together.  I also bought wood letters to spell ART in a cute design, than a paint that would match the fabric.

I gave the ART letters 2 coats of paint called Lemonade.  I am so happy how the color came out, it matches the greenish yellowish color in the fabric almost perfect. 

The next part was the hardest for me, making a template for the clipboard so I could cut my fabric out around the clip part.  I tried to do it myself, than I had to keep going back to the picture of one I found online till it finally clicked how to do it!  I measured the distance from the edges of the board to where i would need to start cutting the middle section out.  I kept measuring and marking each section of the clip board till i got it!  I may be easier to do than all the measuring I did with my ruler but I just couldn't wrap my brain around it!  At least now I have a template in case I ever want to do anymore.

Next I went through and traced this template around my fabric.  I left extra fabric on each side so that I could wrap my fabric around the back and glue it on.  Each 1/2 yard of fabric got me 2 clip boards with some left over. 

As you can see from the picture above, I had to iron the fabrics so they were nice and smooth. Once they were ironed I decided to glue them on with spray adhesive.  I like this stuff because it holds really well and its easy to spray on but I also hate it because it gets my hands all sticky and icky! 1st I layed the fabric on the clip board so it lined up with the clip at the top.  Than I flipped the fabric back to the clip and glued that down than I glued the top.  Last step is to wrap the fabric around the edges and back like you would a present.  A little time consuming but so easy.

And the end project all put together with some of Emma's art work on it!  I LOVE the letters but am not sure if I like how I have them hanging.  I'll give it a few days to see if it grows on me! Any suggestions on how to hang them is appreciated!