DIY Magnet Board...

Or Don't DIY because it's kind of a pain in the butt.

I really did have a lot of fun making this, even though it was a big pain in the butt. I stumbled upon this blog and thought to myself, "Simple enough". Please read that tutorial before reading the rest of my post.

You thought to yourself the same thing I thought, huh? I'll let you in on a little secret... these blog moms are crazy good at crafts. Their tutorials seem sooooo simple, just like any little housewife could do it! Sure, there's a lot of people out there talented enough to do such simple things like cook edible dinners and make magnet boards... I however am not one of them... once again I realize, I was not born to craft.

On Friday night, Hub asked me what I wanted to do. Oddly enough, I wanted to make this. I just told him about it, and how it was soooo easy, it took the lady under an hour to do it! Hub, being the best little Hub out there, drove me to Home Depot. We walked up and down many isles that all looked the same, wood everywhere. That was simple enough to find. We finally had to ask for some help when it came to sheet metal,We just couldn't find any that was big enough. I have a HUGE empty wall in my kitchen and this is what I've been in search of ever since I saw my cute friend Savanna's.

We finally asked a nice man where we would find sheet metal and he showed us. I fell in love. Nothing has ever been so big and handsome (except for you hub). This was 4'x3' of pure goodness. One thing led to another, we were alone, and hub was ready to saw our wood himself! As he was just about to hit the start button, I read a huge sign above him that said something to the effect of "you don't know what you are doing, dumby". Hub had to go find the nice man again.

We then headed to nails. There was a new helper in nails and by this point I wasn't messing around. We asked him where the upholstery nails were, he kinda looked at me like "Honey, your at Home Depot, not a craft store, get out of here!". After searching and searching the wall of nails we found some. I told the new helper our plan of nailing a hole, and then nailing in the upholstery nail after. He went on and on about how we were going to need a drill, and it's going to take forever to nail them one by one, and that's not how he would do it!! I really just wanted to pull out my sassy pants and say, "Listen up, Buckaroo! I read the tutorial, I can pull it up on my phone! She nailed every single nail by hand, not with a drill! And I don't care how you would do it! This is how I am going to do it! It's going to take me less then an hour! Plus, I have a pink tool set that I rarely get to use, so I'm using it tonight!!!!". But I didn't. I was nice, and said please and thank you at the appropriate times.

I'm pretty sure that our trip to Home Depot was over an hour and we just had a short list of things. Sorry hub! But when we got home we ate a quick dinner, (It was like 9:00) and got straight to work.

DIY Magnet Board

Material: Sheet Metal, 1"x2" wood, nails, hammer, upholstery nails, or any kind of pretty nail

Step one:

I had this bright idea of gluing the wood to the metal so that it wouldn't move while I nailed it, and to reinforce it. Bright idea?? Not so bright. Our really cheap wood wasn't exactly flat, not to mention I couldn't find my hot glue gun, so I used Tacky Glue. I don't even know where I got tacky glue, or when I got it! It looks like I found it in the 80's!

To keep the wood pressed against the metal we used everything remotely heavy in our house.

Apparently Tacky Glue doesn't really dry. Like ever. We let it sit for awhile, but I'm not the most patient person. This could be why everything I do is a Disaster. So we decided to flip it over and start nailing things into place.

Step Two:

Skip step one, please oh please, I'm begging you, just skip it.

But if you didn't, now it's time to flip it. Goooooood luck. This is like a 10 man job, but there were only two of us, so as you can imagine.........

We had to hurry and push some sides in, pull some sides out, shed a tear (almost) and maybe say a curse word, or two. Our sides weren't all pushed in, so there is a really thin line of wood hanging out of the bottom, but I don't even care. It's mine, I made it, and I'm no crafter.

Step Three:

Figure out how far apart you want your pretty nails to be. I figured 2 inches apart, about an inch from the edge. So I used a Sharpie to mark the dots. Pens don't work, nor do pencils. Don't waste your time.

You can BARELY see my dots towards the top, but they are there.

Step Four and Five combined:

Tap your nail through the sheet metal into the wood just far enough for it to get stuck. Then rip it out, and put your upholstery tack there and bang that right in. This is actually pretty hard. If you don't nail far enough the first time the tack wont nail straight in and you will end up with almost 20 that look just like this....

*The top one wasn't nailed straight down, see it's little tail? And you did observe that right, I don't have a super fancy camera!!*

and this.....

And you will probably nail your thumb a few times too. I'm new at this, so I got mine 3 times and called it quits. Luckily there were like 4 holes left and Super Hub came to the rescue again.

Isn't he the best? Gosh, I sure think so too.

Then hang up that bad boy and........... TADAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Isn't it just lovely?! I am obsessed to say the least! As for time frame... we watched all of Baby Mama while we were hammering away. Or should I say, we listened in between all the banging. I guess if you are super crafter you could do it in an hour... Then again, if you are super crafter you never even made it to the bottom of this post, you were too busy showing me up!

Now I just need some cute magnets for it!! I found this today.... Maybe next time? I can't possibly mess these up! Or can I?