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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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