Julie's Display Board

I was very excited to start on our first challenge/project. Tuesday night after my son Keenan was asleep I went looking for materials around our house. I started in the basement looking for some kind of base material. The first thing I considered was a big piece of soft foam that had come as packaging with a laptop computer. It was very squishy and although I thought it would work I wondered how you would attach things to it securely. Next I found left over foam insulation from installing our window air conditioning units. I decided this was perfect.

I then headed for my fabric stash which turned out to be a bit tricky as it is all stored in cloth boxes with Velcro closures in my son's room. So I had to carry each bin out of the room individually to open it and look for the right background fabric. I came upon this piece of fabric which oddly enough my ex-husbands great grandmother had given me around ten years ago. Normally I would have gone with something brighter and funkier, but it was going to be hanging in our bedroom (my current sewing area) and I needed it to be something my husband wouldn't mind. This was the perfect fit.

Watching online TV while working on the project (my guilty pleasure)

Ready to add the ribbon

The foam insulation proved to be very easy to work with. First I cut it to size with a utility knife (leaving little foam pellets on the floor for the cats to play in). Next I wrapped the foam with the fabric and stapled it to the back. Then I pulled the velvet ribbon pieces tightly and stapled to the back. Almost too easy. I was finished in about an hour. Since the fabric has a "map" theme I thought attaching things with stick pins would look like marking a map with places you have been or I can tuck things behind one of the ribbon bands.

Finished project ready for inspirations!

I was excited to finish so quickly and my husband even loved the final product. My only disappointment was that I finished the project so quickly and would have to wait until Monday to see Stephanie's version.