DIY Mini Wooden Clipboard

by - 23:24:00

Today I will be attending my first Blogpodium conference, to say I'm excited is an understatement. In preparing for the day I decided I wanted to hand-out some swag. I looked into pens but they were unavailable in my quantity. Then it dawned on me, I'm a DIY blogger - why not DIY my own swag. So I decided to create these mini clipboards. I love them! While being great for swag I feel these would also make the cutest party favour for a shower or birthday.

  
  

I had a few pieces of cedar left over from a previous project (coming soon) and I simply couldn't let it go to waste (plus I love the smell of cedar). So I pulled them out and brought them to my local Home Depot to cut (the board was about 5 ft long 6 inches wide - I asked for a cut every 4 inches - to make my clipboards  4 x 6). The help at Home Depot was fantastic. He even warned me that it would be expensive to make that many cuts but we discussed and concluded it would be cheaper than buying or renting my own table saw in the end.


I brought home the 20 pieces of wood and sanded them down. Again, loving the smell of cedar. 
Then I started to put my plan together. I picked up these great binder clips at Homesense (I looked everywhere for bulldog clips but was unsuccessful and I didn't have time to order online).

I knew I wanted to paint something special on the front to make them really unique but with 20 to do I needed to streamline the process. That's where Staples comes in. I picked up these page protectors and an Exacto knife to create a stencil. First I drew out my design on my note pad and assigned colours. Then I taped the page protector on top of the design and cut out each assigned colour separately. I ended up with three different stencils.


Then I placed the first stencil on one of my boards and spray painted the first colour.  Then continued with each additional colour separately.
Krylon has some great colours that are perfect for this project. 


I struggled to find the best way to adhere the binder clips. A plain thumb tack worked but was hard to hammer in.  Through trial and error I found these picture hanging clips worked best.


After removing them from the D-clip they easily clipped onto the binder clip and provided the perfect place to hammer in my thumb tack. 


To finish it off, I clipped my blog postcard to the front and put a brand sticker on the back. 
Voila, that's it! 20 completed pieces of DIY swag : ) 

 
 

 For an alternative use,  you could nail it on the wall and clip a pic.

What do you think? I Would love to hear from you.  Email me at harlowandthistle@gmail.com to discuss your DIY projects or collaboration opportunities.


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2 comments

  1. These were the cutest swag and definitely memorable too! I loved that you used supplies from many of our BlogPodium sponsors ;)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! They were fun to make (I only wish I had made one for myself lol). See you next year!

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