Framed Magnetic Board

This is one of those great ideas I found on Pinterest.  This link leads right back to the post at The Twice Remembered Cottage that describes how they did it - which is slightly different, because they built their own frame. 

I found this guy on the side of the road on trash day :)  Huge wooden frame (In fact it had glass intact! Need to think of something to do with that...), and the foam backing was there and clean enough to reuse.

I painted the frame black, and distressed it a bit.  Then, I sprayed it with clear sealer. 

I got this giant piece of sheet metal at the hardward store, and cut it down to the right size with tin snips.  Because my frame was so big (about 2' x 3'), this piece was pretty expensive ($20, I think), but since it was the only thing I purchased for this project, I was okay with it.  Smaller pieces of sheet metal are much less expensive. 

I tore pages out of an old book.  Some of them I faux aged with a tea bag.  To do this, I got the tea bag wet, and used it like a paintbrush across the pages.  I let the pages dry overnight.  Then, I sprayed spray adhesive on the metal, small sections at a time, and set the pages down, smoothing them with a credit card type card. 

You can see how some of the pages are darker color than the others, from the tea.  I trimmed around the edge of the metal, to cut off the pages that were hanging off the edge.  I also sprayed over the pages with clear sealer - though I don't know if it needed it.  I made sure all my edges were sealed well with the spray adhesive, so I probably could have gone without the clear spray over the top.  It added spots that look perpetually wet, so I don't know if I would recommend it. 

I put the metal in the frame, along with the foam backing that came with it, in order to make it fit snug. 

Here it is with a few magnets.  I was thinking it would be fun to use to hold a reading chart in the summer, what with the book pages as a background :)

Or, it is pretty darn cute holding my daughter's rainbow princess picture...