DIY Bulletin Board

This DIY bulletin board requires just a few materials and can be made in about 1 hour. It's a great solution for an unusual size and large enough to hold all your notes, pictures, and other inspiration.

Every home office needs a bulletin board. As a blogger, I'm always hanging notes about hex numbers for colors and other things like image sizes for different formats. I also love to pin inspirational notes and quotes to lift my spirits. 

However, most bulletin boards you can buy are larger than I needed so I decided to make one. I wanted a skinny bulletin board to hang horizontally above my laptop or vertically on the wall next to my window.

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How to Make a Bulletin Board

I thought about using fabric to create my bulletin board. Lord knows I have tons of scrap fabric. I also thought about buying some foam board and covering it with burlap.

However, I decided to go with cork. I liked the natural look of it and you can easily buy it with an adhesive backing. If not you could always use double-sided tape or a spray adhesive.

To get my "skinny" size I turned to a poster frame that measured 11.75 by 36 inches. This very inexpensive poster frame has sides that pull off, a cardboard backing, and a plastic cover. I cut the cork liner to fit the cardboard and stored the plastic cover for a future project.

Note: I purchased the poster frame from a craft store. However, you can always try checking out a thrift store for a picture frame. They always have great inexpensive poster frames and framed artwork. Or consider using an old frame you have at home.

Cut the cork liner and peel off the backing paper. Then carefully unroll it onto the cardboard from the poster frame, smoothing the cork liner in place as you go.

Creative Option

Use a stencil and spray paint to create a pretty background for your bulletin board if you like.

Tip: I found that short spurts of paint directly above the stencil worked best. Going back and forth caused some bleed through as you can see.

This poster frame has only one hanger in the middle so I used two command strips on each side to keep it stable. I think poster tack would work well too.

I love the look of these cute little Black Map Pins. They work great especially since the board is not very thick. Later I also found bigger pink pins that were also short and worked well on the board.

This narrow bulletin board worked great above my laptop. However, recently, I purchased a large monitor to work with so I moved the bulletin board next to my window.

I think it looks great there and all I have to do is turn my head to see all of my pics, notes, calendars, and inspiration.