Memory Board Tutorial

[kiarachan.livejournal.com]

One of my lj friends, sankuri, asked me to write up a tutorial of how I did my memory boards. I had written in my livejournal about them, and she wants to make one for herself. So, since I have this tutorial written already, I figured I'd go ahead and post it here, just in case.

Admins - If you want to add this to the memories, go ahead - the only thing that'll ever change is lack of pictures other then a quick computer drawing, and I'll come back and update this entry if I add pictures.

Kiara's Memory Board Tutorial
E-mail: kiarachan@livejournal.com
Website: www.chibitenshi.net

If you need a picture to help with the tutorial, here's one:
http://img53.photobucket.com/albums/v162/KiaraJoy/My%20Tutorials/?action=view¤t=memory_board.png. I'll take pictures every step of the way the next time I make a board. If you need any help, or don't
understand some of the instructions, e-mail me at the address provided above.

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Supplies:
- Foam board (I used three 20"x30" boards, and cut one in half so that I ended up with two big ones and two small ones)
- If you cut the board in half, you'll only need 1/2 a yard of fabric, your choice. Any fabric will work; I was going to use some heavy silver brocade, but then I found some cotton that I liked better. If this is your first time to make a memory board, go with some kind of cotton that's not too stretchy. If you don't cut the board in half, get a yard of fabric. You will have scraps, no matter which one you go with. I made a little purse out of the left over fabric from one of my big ones, and I'm going to make a cell phone case from the scraps of one of the smaller ones.
- Scissors
- A hot glue gun and glue sticks
- One spool of ribbon that matches your fabric
- Sewing pins
- Batting
- An xacto knife and scissors; it's hard to cut foam board with scissors. Trust me. That's what I had to use, and the edges on the one I cut in half looked really bad and if you look closely, you can see them even with the fabric, ribbon, and batting.

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And now, on to the actual construction. :D

1: Open your batting and pull it out. Unfold it and place one layer on your foam board. To hold it in place while you're cutting it, take your sewing pins and stick one in each corner. For added stability, I put one pin in between each corner on the shorter edge and three on the longer edges. Cut it where it's a little bit smaller then the board, then put the rest of the batting away.

2: Using your hot glue gun, glue a little bit of the batting at a time to the board. Don't worry about glueing the center, just glue the edges. I started at one corner and worked my way around the edges until I got back to where I started. As you go, take out the pins. Be sure to press the batting down into the glue before it dries so that it'll actually glue, and pull it tight.

3: While the glue dries a little, iron your fabric so that it'll look nice on the board. I ironed on the back of the fabric because my iron is old and has a lot of rust and stuff on the bottom that tends to come off. If you're using something other then cotton or something similar to it, take a hand towel or a wash cloth and place it on top of the fabric, between it and the iron.

4: After you're done ironing, go back to your board. Place your fabric right-side down on a table or the floor or whatever, and then place the board along one edge of the fabric. Make sure to leave enough fabric on the side to be able to pull it up and over to the back of the board.

5: Using the pins the same way on the fabric as you did on the batting to cut it, cut the fabric. Be sure to leave enough extra fabric on each side to bring the fabric up and over to the back. Using the pins, pin the fabric to the back of the board until you're ready to glue it.

6: Start glueing the fabric in place, pulling the fabric tight so that it doesn't balloon on the front. If you want to, pin the fabric in place several times and get it stretched nicely before you start glueing it to the back of the board. As you glue the edges, take out the pins and make sure to pull it taut. I turn the board over every time I glue to make sure the fabric is still pulled tight.

7: Now you're ready for adding the ribbon. Using the pins again, pin one end of the ribbon on the back of one of the corners, and then go diagonally down the board to the other corner. Turn the board over, cut the ribbon, and pin it down again. Now repeat for the other two corners so that you have an 'X' shape. Glue the edges of the ribbons that are on the back; don't glue the ribbon onto the front or you won't be able to put things behind the ribbon to hold them. On one of my boards, I had to iron some of my ribbon because it wasn't laying flat. If your 'X' isn't laying flat, iron the ribbon down before moving on to the next step. (Refer to the picture I provided at the top of this tutorial if you need guidance.)

8: Once you've got your 'X' laying flat, go to one of the edges and pin your ribbon in place on the back once again. I went from the center of the sorter edge to the center of the longer edge, then to the center of the other shorter edge, then to the center of the other longer edge, then back to the center of the edge that I started at. Pin the ribbon in place on the back at each point. You should have a diamond shape along with your 'X' now. Hot glue the ribbons into place on the back, making sure they're positioned correctly and aren't getting twisted around. Iron the ribbon if you need to.

9: Now, some memory boards have decorative buttons where the ribbons criss-cross each other. I don't have these on mine, so I'm not sure how you'd go about doing them. You'd have to figure it out on your own. If you've pulled your ribbon tight enough, you won't need the buttons unless you just want them for decoration.

10: Now to make the hanger. For my hangers, I used some more of the ribbon and made two hangers by glueing each end of the ribbon to the back of the board. You can hang it either way you want, but you'll have to do the hanger on whichever end you want to be the top of it. My two big ones are going to be hung where they're side-ways, and the two small ones are going to be hung long-ways.

11: Use your scraps to make cute headbands, purses, cell phone holders, coin purses, or whatever else you can think of. You won't have a ton left over from your board, of course, but it's the perfect amount for the things I listed. You could even make hangers out of some of the scraps, if you wanted.

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Other stuff:

For the fabric, you could use a solid color fabric, and then get a second fabric that's see-through that coordinates with the solid color. I'm going to make one like this evantually. You'd want to glue the batting, then your solid fabric, and then the see-through fabric. Be as creative as you want.

For decoration, do whatever you want. Get creative. Just make sure it doesn't overpower your memory board and leaves plenty of room for pictures and such.