Trash to Display Board

 A while back when I went to drop off our recycling I noticed these two shutter like things stuck in the the paper recycling. They obviously didn't belong there and I thought they were kind of neat looking so I decided to bring them home. They sat around for a month or two out in the garage but then I found a "need" for them.

   I brought them in and scrubbed them up good and then I decided to polish them a bit with shoe polish to make them look a bit better. Then I used raffia and tied them together so they could stand up.
  They were first pressed into use for my bridal show last weekend. I was having a rustic theme so I thought they fit in fine. I put it behind a centerpiece, hung a picture on it and also attached a ribbon to which I hung some boutonnieres for display.
 After I brought it home again it was stripped of the bridal show stuff and then yesterday I decided to make it into a display board. As I have been going through things around the house I have found various little odds and ends that friends (that either visited and were from) have brought me from other countries. I had dug some of the them out for our Homeschool day and thought it would be fun to have some way to display them.

  When making the board we decided to add some pictures to it as well. I had a cool calendar that Ken had given me a couple of years ago that had pretty pictures from all over the world- we added some of those to the display.

  I had thought I would put this in the boys' room as they love geography and have their walls already plastered with maps and flags from other countries. However we weren't able to find a good wall spot there so we ended up hanging it in the hallway that leads to the kids' rooms.
  The kids have had fun looking over all my odds and ends. It is a fun way to remember friends that live in other countries.

  And as always I had fun making something for my home without buying anything!



I am also linking to Frugal Friday at Life as MOM and Saturday Night Special at Funky Junk Interiors.