Brave pin board - Finished! (photo heavy)
I'm working on a new pin board, and it's not finished yet but I'm so proud of it I can't wait to show it off! 
I've been enchanted by this pin ever since I first saw it:
I don't know if there's any chance I'll ever obtain it, but after I saw the wonderful cloth version that another DPF member made, I decided to try my own. Only what I like to make is shapes out of fabric-covered coroplast, so... well, here's my take on it! (Photos are links to flickr pages with larger images)
So the coroplast I get at my local craft store is 24" x 18"; I wanted a 24 x 24 square so I cut down another and taped them together. The fabric will help hold them together, and so will having them crosswise for stability.
Freehand sketched the pin as best I could from a printout, using center and cross marks to help me stay more or less symmetrical.
Went over the sketch in green pencil to solidify lines I wanted to keep vs. practice sketch lines; also shaded in the negative areas, and made hash marks so I'd remember where the pieces go.
The cutting begins! My table isn't generally big enough to cut my pin boards, so I use the chair mat on the floor. (Ow my back!)
All the pieces are cut out and laid out, ready for fabric!
The covering begins! I usually use glue for this, but weirdly, NONE of my glues would work on this fabric. Maybe because it's a polyester, being glued to plastic. Double-side tape worked PERFECTLY for some reason, so I just got a bunch of rolls of that.
More than half done! With a piece in the foreground with its front stuck to the fabric, waiting for me to tape it around the back. Actually maybe less than half done, since I also need to cover the back circle in fabric.
I knew I'd need to simplify the design some to make this work; some details are just too hard to cut out (like the eyeballs) -- coroplast doesn't do fine detail all that well. Also I knew I'd be losing a certain amount of usable pin display area to the negative spaces. So some of the details are tucked into slits in the plastic rather than being cut out. Even that was much harder than I expected; I had to try a number of different things before finding a way to do it that worked.
The fabric is visibly grained, which I chose on purpose because it looks a bit like burnished metal and because any runs the pins cause might show a little less; then I realized I had to make sure the grain all lined up, because nobody would burnish a pin in all different directions in the design. Fortunately that's easy; I line up the fabric grain with the coroplast grain every time I cut out a fabric piece.
And there it is so far! I'll edit with the final photos once it's done and got pins on!
Edit 5/22/13:
All the pieces are covered in fabric. Didn't have time yesterday to get them all glued together, but here's how they look laid out:
Might need to re-do one tiny piece where the fabric grain isn't right.
Hoping to get the gluing done tonight!
Edit 6/3/13: Finished!!
Been meaning to post this for a few days but... well never mind the but. Here it is, finished and loaded with my Brave collection-- with room for more! (I hope I hope!)
So pleased with it!! Now I just have to decide where to hang it!
I've been enchanted by this pin ever since I first saw it:
I don't know if there's any chance I'll ever obtain it, but after I saw the wonderful cloth version that another DPF member made, I decided to try my own. Only what I like to make is shapes out of fabric-covered coroplast, so... well, here's my take on it! (Photos are links to flickr pages with larger images)
So the coroplast I get at my local craft store is 24" x 18"; I wanted a 24 x 24 square so I cut down another and taped them together. The fabric will help hold them together, and so will having them crosswise for stability.
Freehand sketched the pin as best I could from a printout, using center and cross marks to help me stay more or less symmetrical.
Went over the sketch in green pencil to solidify lines I wanted to keep vs. practice sketch lines; also shaded in the negative areas, and made hash marks so I'd remember where the pieces go.
The cutting begins! My table isn't generally big enough to cut my pin boards, so I use the chair mat on the floor. (Ow my back!)
All the pieces are cut out and laid out, ready for fabric!
The covering begins! I usually use glue for this, but weirdly, NONE of my glues would work on this fabric. Maybe because it's a polyester, being glued to plastic. Double-side tape worked PERFECTLY for some reason, so I just got a bunch of rolls of that.
More than half done! With a piece in the foreground with its front stuck to the fabric, waiting for me to tape it around the back. Actually maybe less than half done, since I also need to cover the back circle in fabric.
I knew I'd need to simplify the design some to make this work; some details are just too hard to cut out (like the eyeballs) -- coroplast doesn't do fine detail all that well. Also I knew I'd be losing a certain amount of usable pin display area to the negative spaces. So some of the details are tucked into slits in the plastic rather than being cut out. Even that was much harder than I expected; I had to try a number of different things before finding a way to do it that worked.
The fabric is visibly grained, which I chose on purpose because it looks a bit like burnished metal and because any runs the pins cause might show a little less; then I realized I had to make sure the grain all lined up, because nobody would burnish a pin in all different directions in the design. Fortunately that's easy; I line up the fabric grain with the coroplast grain every time I cut out a fabric piece.
And there it is so far! I'll edit with the final photos once it's done and got pins on!
Edit 5/22/13:
All the pieces are covered in fabric. Didn't have time yesterday to get them all glued together, but here's how they look laid out:
Might need to re-do one tiny piece where the fabric grain isn't right.
Hoping to get the gluing done tonight!
Edit 6/3/13: Finished!!
Been meaning to post this for a few days but... well never mind the but. Here it is, finished and loaded with my Brave collection-- with room for more! (I hope I hope!)
So pleased with it!! Now I just have to decide where to hang it!
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