Hidy Ho fellow crafters – welcome to my FIRST and most probably last, crafty blog post 🙂
A few of you liked my Birthday Board that I did last week which shows family birthdays and anniversaries, so here is my explanation of how I made it. Please hit me with any questions if I haven’t explained something well enough.
Firstly you will need to go to your local hardware store and purchase the following items.
I originally bought a laminated shelf and it was a big mistake, HUGE. It was so hard to nail into and the laminate kept splitting. I did one heart and gave up. I then bought a pine shelf set like this – about 600mm long and 190 wide and just used the shelf bit. It was about $10 and already comes sanded and nicely bevelled at the edge.

You will also need 12 little cup hooks and two picture hooks.
I had some leftover picture wire from an frame I bought at IKEA which did the back wire on the board as well as made me my little rings to join my tags. You will need some long nose pliers to shape the rings.
I also bought some Gold spray paint for the board and my gold tags. I already had some metallic pink ink in my scrapping box which I used for the hearts but you could spray those too. The paints are about $7.50 each.
Obviously a hammer and quite a few smallish nails will be needed.
You will need thread for your string work. I started on the hearts with some of my cross stitch thread but because it was already pre cut into 6 lengths, it got really annoying having to constantly tie the ends off and restart with a new length. It would have taken me a month of Sundays and a shitload of patience to persevere with that idea so I bought these rolls from Spotlight, $4 each. I didn’t end up using the light blue/white one – just the royal blue one. I also used a long “mess” of gold string I already had in my cross stitch box to give it some highlights.
I looked everywhere for some tags to use – didnt check Spotlight though, they may have some but these I bought on ebay. If you enlarge the photo the shop where I ordered them from should be on it. Quite reasonably priced from memory….. Just make sure that the dimensions are all good – they need to fit side by side times twelve under your board. My circles were 32mm wide and my hearts were 38mm.
Lets get started.
So firstly, you will need to spray paint your board. I gave it two coats. The paint dries very quickly, in an hour or so. Then mark out your board on the underside with the months. Measure the length, allow a cm or two from each end and divide by 12. Do it in pencil first and then put a small black dot when you finally get it right. Took me a while and I majored in maths in high school!! The screws I just hand screwed in – the pine is soft enough for this.
  You will also need to hop on the computer and choose a font you like – I cannot remember what I used but it was just in Microsoft Word. I enlarged it and printed it out on two sheets, cut it out and lightly stuck it down with tape. I also googled some hearts that I liked the shape of.
Outside and hammering – this just took a few hours and is the biggest part of the job. A friend suggested to me that I use a pair of pliers to hold the nails whilst hammering and this would have been good to know BEFORE I had finished. The bits in the M can get tricky and this would have been a useful tip. Try and keep your nails to a level height. Doesn’t really matter if you don’t but it would look better.
I tied a double knot on one nail and after I had finished I popped a tiny dob of glue on it just to secure it better. This took all 6 lengths on my cross stitch thread. Would have been so much easier if I had bought a red ball of thread from Spotlight too. Little bit of gold after, to highlight.
Just keep threading until you get the desired density. You can buy rainbow threads from Spotlight too and this can be effective as it changes colour throughout the length. Perdy.
I experimented with the lettering for the word BIRTHDAYS. I have an extensive scrapping collection and these were the two fonts I thought would be good. K Mart, Target, Spotlight, Scrapping stores have a huge variety to choose from plus there are heaps on online scrapping shops that you can purchase your lettering from. The month initials I already had in my collection too and I just stuck them over my hook marks.
 Stick your chosen lettering on.
Do NOT let your children near your supplies!!!!!
Next, you have to either do it yourself or con the hubby into drilling the holes into your wooden tags. Make sure you have your list of birthdays and anniversaries written out and have worked out the order of the shapes. You need to know which ones only need one hole in the and which need two. This is important, otherwise you will have your bottom tags with extra holes in them which will look funny. Spray/ink these too.
I fashioned some rings out of my leftover picture wire. Not too hard to do – they don’t have to be perfect.
Lay out your board in the right order, grab a fine tipped permanent marker and go for it!!! I put the date first and then the name on mine. Alternatively I guess you could source a sheet of small font stickers but I think your own handwriting makes the board look homely. Add some authenticity if you will. Maybe practise writing out the name on a piece of  paper he same size. Think about the largest name you have and how it will fit. For the anniversary tags I popped the date in the top left hand side part of the heart and tried to put the larger name first, where the heart is widest.
I hand screwed in the picture hooks and ran the picture wire between the two, wrapping it around on itself.
Hey Presto!!
Enjoy
xxxxx