Kitchen Art, or Refrigerator Not Needed

Recently, I was struck by inspiration. I love when that happens! I love kid art and I love encouraging my kiddos to create, but putting artwork on the refrigerator got to be very overwhelming. Do you realize how much art kids bring home from school? It's insane! On a few blogs, I noticed cork boards hung full of children's art and thought this the perfect solution for our family. I present you with my kitchen cork board.

This awesome cork board not only holds many examples of my children's artwork, but it also frees up refrigerator real estate. No longer do I have to worry about opening the refrigerator fearing an attack of paper (or twelve). This cork board allows for easy rotation of art and less mess since it's not moved until I move it intentionally! Last and certainly not least, this rotating art feeds my need for constant change and lots of color!

I made this cork board using:
1. 1 Giant Frame bought at Michael's (with their 40% off coupon): $12.00
2. 6 Cork squares $10.00
3. Blue spray paint $3.00
4. Caulk $1.00
5. Hot glue had on-hand

This project almost beat me. I couldn't find a pre-made cork board big enough, so I used a large picture frame without the glass. However, once I hot glued the cork to the cardboard backing and hung it up, the cork sagged away from the top of the frame. My problem was that when I replaced the glass with the cork board, the frame no longer fit together very well. See that sagging? It was ugly. It was also proof that a this board wasn't going to hold up to rotating pictures.

Enter my new BFF, caulk. I caulked around the back side of the frame filling the the gaps between the cardboard and the frame and let it dry overnight. Finally, no sagging (well, at least no sagging cork board).