I’m passionate about simple craft—projects anyone can do, even if you don’t consider yourself creative. When creating, I also love to ask myself, “What do I have in my hand?” It’s sometimes necessary to buy new things, but I find that often a closer look reveals that I can use something I already have.

I’ve wanted a French photo board (to use as an inspiration board) for a long time. But gosh, all that canvas, batting, fabric, and so on sounded like a lot of trouble, and I’m too cheap to buy one. Instead, I came up with this.

Here’s what I used: an inexpensive corkboard, a spool of ¼” grosgrain ribbon (cheap at Big Lots), and pretty wrapping paper.

My wrapping paper box yielded a scrap large enough to cover the inside of the board. I just trimmed it to fit. (Here you see the back of the paper.) I’ll let you in on my secret: the wrapping paper was even used. I just ironed it. Yes, I’m cheap. But hey, I didn’t have to buy any!!! Remember, “What do I have on hand?”

Then I attached the ribbon in a criss-cross design with flat push pins, putting one at each end and one at each place where the ribbon intersected. I meant to get better pics of this step, but we just started with a giant X, corner to corner and then added pieces to the grid.

Don’t look too closely, it’s not perfect! It would look a lot better if the frame was white or pink, but I’ll settle for this for now. I’m really pleased with how it turned out for just a few dollars.

You can make one too!