State of the Heart Bulletin Board

by Lisa Cestkowski

2 Materials

I had a thrift store bulletin board that I wanted to hang above my desk, but I didn't want it to end up being a disorganized mess of notes, photos and memorabilia. To keep the clutter in check, I decided I'd fill the top half with a collage of hearts in the shape of Wisconsin.

Here's the bulletin board I started with. The frame was a nice neutral cream color, with a few chippy spots where a mint green was peeking through. I liked the color of the frame. The color of the cork, not so much.

To cover the orange cork, I painted on two coats of Americana Decor Chalky Finish Paint in Lace. It's a cream color, a couple shades lighter than the frame.

I bought three packages of different sized heart cutouts. The foam hearts (center) and the felt hearts (right) both had sticky backs. The cardboard glitter hearts (left) didn't.

I painted the hearts with two coats of Folk Art Home Decor Chalk Paint in Rich Black.

I found a map of Wisconsin online, sized it widthwise to fit inside my frame and printed it off. Then I taped the tiled pieces together and cut out around the border.

I traced around the border with a pencil to give me an outline of the state.

Next, I filled in the outlines with my black hearts, starting at the bottom.

I worked from the outside in, finding hearts that would fill out the edge first and then trying to vary the size and direction of the hearts as much as I could.

Once I had all the hearts roughly in place, I adhered them to the board. The formerly red glitter hearts I attached with rubber cement. The rest were peel-and-stick.