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Perler Bead Projects:
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Bulletin Board

Most "make your own" bulletin board directions I've read called for purchasing wood or cork of some sort.  As you know, I'm not that big on purchasing things for my children's crafts (we make so many of them we'd be broke in no time *laugh*)  so I've done one that uses newspaper instead!

We made the entire bulletin board with things we had lying around the house.

We made ours 8 1/2 x 11 but you could do a larger one.

Materials:

bulletcardboard backing from a paper pad or cardboard from an old cereal box cut to 8 1/2 x 11
bulletpiece of corrugated cardboard (cardboard box) cut to 8 1/2 x 11 inches
bullet10 pieces of newspaper or so 
bullet2 pieces of plain white paper
bullet1 piece of material about 10 x 13 or so (we used an old, stained white T-shirt -- the unstained part)
bulletribbon -- we used old ribbon from Christmas presents -- it doesn't have to be fancy cloth ribbon or anything.
bulletstring or wool
bulletcrafting glue gun (adults should help) OR safety pins
bulletpush pins
bullettape
bulletOPTIONAL:  some sort of decorations.  Ex:
bulletthese could be special buttons or pins.  
bulletWe made perler bead flowers to match our home made binders.  Check the binder page for how the flowers are made.
bulletIf using cotton or cotton/poly material, you can use some of the iron on transfer templates to decorate before assembling

 

Instructions:

bulletTake the cardboard back off a paper pad or cut a piece of cereal box to 8 1/2 x 11
  
bulletCut the piece of corrugated cardboard from a box to 8 1/2 x 11 inches.  This might require a bit of help from a grownup
  
bulletCut the pieces of newspaper to 8 1/2 x 11 inches.  You need about 20 of them (give or take).  The girls enjoyed tracing the cardboard and cutting it.
  
bulletMake a stack of all your materials in this order:
bulletpaper pad backing (or cereal box)
bulletcorrugated cardboard
bulletnewspaper sheets
bullet2 pieces of white paper (so the newsprint doesn't show through the fabric.
  
bulletCut the fabric you've chosen (old pillow cases, tshirts, sheets, etc all work great!) to about 10x13 inches.  
  
bulletPut the material on top of your stack and flip the whole thing over.
  
bulletHot glue the material to the cardboard, pulling tight:
bulletwe (of course) ran out of hot glue about 1/2 way through and just safety pinned the material to the cardboard for the last two sides.  It worked just fine
  
bulletCut two pieces of ribbon, so they wrap under the bulletin board.  Tape.
  
bulletPin or glue your chosen decorations to the board
  
bulletHot glue (or tie to safety pins) a piece of string so you can hang your board

Hopefully you can see from the picture to the left how Tasha was able to slip her favorite photo under the ribbon (that way you don't get pin holes in special things)

Notes and such can be stuck to the board with push pins.