From trash to treasure

before

Some time ago, while walking in the yard, I can across a vintage sidelight at our son's shed.  It appealed to me so much that I picked it up and carted it home.  Richard told me that Adam had plans for it, but I conned Adam into letting me have it.  I had plans for a bulletin board.  

clean and scrubbed wood

Yesterday I decided to see how it would look cleaned up.  I used a couple of brushes and some old rags to clean the wood.  Then tackled the glass with a Brillo pad and Windex.  Turns out my combination works great on glass.  I was worried that the Brillo would scratch, but I scrubbed very gently and kept the glass wet with the Windex.  After getting wiped down with paper towels, the windows were almost invisible.

 I started out by adding some letters that I made using styrofoam insulation.  It's easy to cut the styrofoam with a hot knife.  First I drew the letters with a Sharpie, then just cut them out.  The hard part was covering the letters with fabric, but I used tiny little applique pins to hold the fabric in place until I was able to get the hot glue to hold.  The fabrics are some of my favorites from Lola Pink.  The "T" blends a bit too much, so I'll have to recover it with a brighter color.  Thank goodness T is fairly easy to cover.  I guess this means a road trip to Lafayette!

What other letters would I use?

Next up, measure and cut pretty paper to fit the glass.  I just taped the paper in place using wide packing tape.  I decided to use two colors--the red will be for holding sticky notes, the light green paper will work as a dry erase board.  

That left one sidelight, but the glass in that hole was badly broken and I'd already removed it.  To make a bulletin board, I cut another piece of styrofoam to fit, covered it with batting and a polka dot fabric that matches the rest of the color scheme.  A few straight pins will do the work of pushpins. 

I propped the sidelight on the wall at the back of my studio desk.  The original paint is off white which matches the painted parts of the desk, but it's worn down so that the wood grain shows in some areas.  I had a cork strip, which I added above the "QUILT" letters to give me a bit more use on that side of the board even though large pieces of paper will cover the letters.  

What do you think?  Although I didn't really need such a board, I think it will be quite useful since it's at my desk.  I'd like to be able to do more paperwork at the desk, which means that I need to arrange things a bit better and quit using it as a catch all for every little thing that finds its way into the studio.  Maybe a pretty basket or two will help me to collect those things in one place until I can get them put away.  The good news is that I had to clear off the desk to be able to put the board there, and I did not put anything back so that I can pick and choose what will go on the desk and arrange those things so that I can reach what I need.  Please share what you do to keep your desk organized and clear.  Obviously, I could use some ideas.