Mother's Day Craftyness

I don't know about all you mom's out there, but every year I rack my brain for a unique mother's day gift & I always come up with the same thing.  Either jewelry or some kind of photo gift.  My mom claims to love each & every gift we give her, which I don't doubt, but I was trying to think of something a little different this year.

My mom is always telling me how she can't put magnets on the front of her fridge since its stainless steel.  She is restricted to just placing her photos on the sides of the fridge where it's obviously not as visible.  I keep seeing those adorable magnetic memo boards & thought that might be a good solution to display photos.  So of course I check my fave site ever, Etsy!  Found lots of cute memo boards, exactly what I was looking for actually.  However, not quite what I was willing to spend.  They ranged anywhere from $60-$130!  Yikes!

After researching some tutorials I came across a great one.  Which I cannot seem to locate at the moment to give credit to.  I headed to the store & got all the materials & got started!    I decided to make a memo board for not only my mom, but my two aunt's & my grandma.

Here's a list of the supplies, in case you want to try this yourself!

-Frame (needs to be fairly large to accommodate several photos)
-Sheet of stainless steel (this can be purchase at most hardware stores)
-Tin Shears (to cut the stainless steel) - although if you bat your eyes at one of the Home Depot employees, they might just cut it for you!  ;)
-Fabric (make sure you iron it first)
-Adhesive spray
-Spray paint & Acrylic sealer (I used a clear matte finish)

The frames I purchased were somewhat ornate looking.  They had vintagy type of  feel to them.  But they were this awful gold color.  I just spray painted the frames with a few coats & once they had dried for several hours I topped them off with an acrylic spray to seal it.

Then my hubby Karl cut down the sheet metal to fit inside the frame perfectly.  Be careful, because the sheet metal is already sharp & when you cut it there may be some jagged edges.

I then took the sheet metal (not in the frame) outside in a well ventilated area & sprayed the entire thing.  Then quickly pressed the fabric over the metal & smoothed out the bubbles & creases.  Fold over the fabric along the edges & use spray adhesive to keep them down.

Now all that is left is to take your fabric covered sheet metal, place within frame, place the backing of the frame into place & you should have something that looks like the photos below!

I also went one step further & made cute little coordinating button magnets.  I thought the memo boards turned out pretty cute!  What do you think?

P.S. My mom absolutely loved it!!!

My mom's memo board:

The other three I made: