Cute Clipboard Christmas Gift

I made a few of these last year to give as gifts so I thought I would post a tutorial on them. These are oh so cute on the door or the wall to hold chore charts, honey-do lists and grocery lists. I do love organization! Disclaimer: image quality=less than acceptable. It was really rainy and the lighting was bad. I know, excuses excuses. Maybe one day I will have an awesome camera that takes beautiful, professional-quality pictures, one day.






You will need a clipboard, thanks again Wal Mart! (I have made them using clear and brown, both are equally cute)


paint pens (you can also use paint and a brush if you would rather)
ribbon
hot glue gun


First, you need to create a template for the initial in Microsoft Office Word. Insert word art, type your letter in the font of your choice, and enlarge it to cover the whole page. Make sure to choose a bold font so it will be easy to cut out and trace around. For brown clipboards, flip the paper upside down and trace the letter from the bottom with a pencil. Make sure to appy plenty of lead. Flip the paper right side up, place it on the clipboard, and trace from the top. The letter should appear on the board, if not rub harder on the back. Trust me this is easier than trying to get the paint off of the brown board if you make a mistake. I hope that makes sense.






For the clear board, cut out the letter and tape it in the desired location and trace it with a paint pen. Fill it in with the pen color of your choice.













For the polkadots, trace something circular, I used the bottom of a cup, but you can use whatever size you want. I think it would be cute to use a star-shaped cookie cutter for a boy's room. Fill in the dots.





Now for the bow, there are a bazillion types of bows that you could use (try my favorite function: google). This is just one type. Take a length of ribbon, the longer the ribbon, the bigger the bow. Loop one side around to make the first half of the bow and pinch to hold in place.








Loop the other side around so that it looks the same as the first.








Pin in place and thread a needle. Wind the needle through the bow and pull tight (see pic)



Wrap the thread around the bow several times and tie off at the end. Cut excess. To keep the tails of the bow from fraying, paint on a little clear nail polish.







I hot glued a second bow without tails inside the first to make it look a little fuller. I also added a button to the middle. Hot glue the bow to the top of the clip part of the clipboard so that it can still open and close. Thats it! Hope you enjoy making these and let me know if you do!






XOXO



Ramsey

Linking to:







The How to Gal