message board

Vintage Frame turned Message Board

Upcycle projects were my JAM for a very long time before I got brave and started to do bigger DIYs. But every once in a while I need to treat myself to a simple DIY that brings new life to an old thing, ya know? I found this vintage frame at an estate sale for a whopping $3. So, duh. It never had a picture, glass of any kind, or even a backer. I bought this just for the love of that tattered gold and turned it in to a message board.

With this technique you can turn any old frame into a beautiful repurposed message board!

message board

I kept this frame on the floor in our office for months before I decided what I wanted it do with it. One day the idea came to me.

Here’s how I did it:

I started out by evenly spacing eye hooks along the edge of the frame. I tied twine to the top hooks and gave myself extra long cords to work with.

setting up the eyes hooks

Be sure to give yourself a really good knot. You can go back and trim the excess later.

screw eye

Once I had my eye hooks screwed in and my cords set up, I started to play with different patterns by stretching the cords across each other and through the hooks.

twist the cords

I landed on this pattern, which I thought was the easiest to manage and looked the nicest. I crossed neighboring cords and then pulled the ones on the sides back to next screw eye and worked my way down the frame. It’s like an elaborate braid.

making the pattern

I repeated the braid all the way down the frame through each screw eye. Once I got to the bottom, I worked on perfecting the diamonds. If you pull one cord too tight, it will pull the other cords it’s crossed with and make them looser. I adjusted the strings multiple times to make them look as uniform as I could.

finished pattern

When I landed on a combination that was pretty consistent throughout, I tied off each of the cords.

cut off excess

Once the cords were secured with good knots, I cut off the excess twine!

If you like this up-cycle project and want to see more, view our Up Cycle blog posts >

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