Message Board

We are in the process of decorating the big girl's room.  (we are always in the process of decorating something, right?)  With the bright purple, we thought black and white would be a good accent.  There are touches of other bright colors in there as well, in the pillows and some accessories.  With wall space to fill and pictures and other paper "things" to be displayed, naturally a message board was necessary.  With our budget of very little, we got creative!
This is what I dug up to transform:

A map picture that has seen better days.  It was the perfect size, nice and big.  And the map was glued onto foam core, also perfect.  First things first, I took the map out of the frame and spray painted the frame black.  (already had the paint)  Then I cut a square of some mid-weight batting and cut it a little smaller than the board so that it wouldn't be in the way when I put it back into the frame.  I sprayed some adhesive on the board and stuck the batting onto it so it wouldn't be moving around.  Then I took some cute graphic black and white fabric (already had) and cut it bigger than my map board. I spread the fabric out on the floor and centered the board on it, batting side down.  I then wrapped the fabric onto the board, using duct tape to adhere.

 I took some ribbon (I had to buy the ribbon) and criss-crossed it onto the board, also adhering on the back with duct tape.  Almost done!  The board was ready to go back into the frame.  I took some cute buttons (also had to buy, so went with cheap-yet-cute ones) and sewed them onto the board where the ribbons crossed each other.  I just sewed through the foam core-it was easy!  The needle went right through.  Someone clipped their flower hair clip on and it was cute, so I left it.  Voila!  Awesome message board, for very little money!  Perfect.