Embellished fabric bulletin board

This blurry photo of my niece is actually back story for the Mother's Day gift I made my mom. See that large, framed poster behind her head? My mom bought it years ago at a garage sale. If I remember it right, she actually thought the poster was ugly, but the frame was the perfect size for that bare spot on her wall. She started tucking pictures into the frame, then taping them to the glass when she ran out of valuable frame space.

I had the idea that she needed a fabric bulletin board and began bookmarking (I should really be pinning) tutorials. In the end, I kind of cobbled together my own way of doing it. 

I knew it would hang in her kitchen and hold her photos, which gave me the idea to do a scrapbook style embellishment cluster in the corner. I took the selvage of the fabric (from my stash, probably three years old) to Michael's and tried to match as best I could. It was hard! I definitely found myself wishing I were using one of those scrapbook paper turned fabric lines, a la Basic Grey or Riley Blake's Fly a Kite, so I had all of the embellishments, buttons and ribbons pre-coordinated! 

Finding the buttons was perhaps, the hardest part of this. I ended up having to use a heavy duty staple gun to secure all of the layers, and those big, thick staples needed rather large buttons to cover them! I kept finding just the right thing, but in the wrong size, or in packages small enough that it would have cost me $15 just in buttons (or jewels, or glittered chipboard disks...I contemplated a lot of finishing options)! I ended up finding a package of coordinating buttons in the Hobby Lobby that were a few different shades of brown and cream with four different designs on them. They came 15 to a package and were $1.99, which was perfect since I needed 36 of them for this board! 

I think I may start with the buttons when I make one of these for myself, which I am definitely planning on doing! I got a new desk for my sewing machine and one of these would be so cute to hang above it!