Mother's Day

For the first time I really thought about Mother's Day.  I know how hard my mom works and I wanted to do something special for her, that she would actually use.  Well ... she got her present last week while we were visiting, and I think I succeeded, at least she fooled me into thinking I succeeded.

I made her a picture board!  It was so easy.  She gets a lot of pictures from her 10 kids and 20+ grandkids.  I know from experience how hard it is to keep your picture frames updated, or even hang them on the wall (especially for her).  I think it is genetic, I hung up an empty frame on our wall (to make sure it would look good) and it stayed hung up empty for about a year...and then we moved.

ANYWAY, back to the picture board.  I took the pictures with my phone, so they are not the best quality.

I used a thick foam board and then put a layer of batting on the top.  I found some dark blue material and just covered the front and wrapped it around to the back and then stapled...ALOT.  I got the ribbon on sale from Hobby Lobby and just measured the width, and threaded every other one, and stapled it in the back.
Side note: You will use more ribbon than you think.  I bought one spool that said 18 feet thinking it would be enough.  I am obviously lacking some math smarts.  I ended up using 4 - 18' spools.  

Some of the picture boards have tacks or brads at all of the crosses, but I thought that was a little too much.  So I did every other one.  The only thing about the foam board is that the tacks don't stay very well.  I used super glue to make sure they wouldn't fall off the fabric, but for this reason I would recommend using some hard board.

Part of the present to my mom was actually hanging it and putting the pictures on it for her.  I know they aren't spaced very well...I was just throwing them on.
Totally easy, and totally awesome!  I am going to have to make myself one now.