Years ago, swinging through southern France with a bunch of girlfriends after university, I bought this beautiful old picture frame from a junk store.  I bought two of them in fact, and they cost only a handful of francs (francs! that ages me immediately..).  It has lived with me for many years and had many different roles, but recently has just been propped up in the art room, looking lovely but rather aimless.

So I reinvented it as a hanging pinboard to store our acrylic paints, in an accessible place so that Harry can take them down and use them without having to ask for help with cupboards or high shelves.  Now he can trash his clothes ALL BY HIMSELF without any grown-up help at all!

To make the pinboard, I measured the back of the frame and asked my local DIY store to cut a piece of plywood to the right size (usually the first few cuts are free when you buy the wood).  I glued a sheet of cork over the top, and then used tiny panel pins to tap the wood into place on the frame.  I did this in a slapdash, haphazard way, with little symmetry and a number of mishits (hello, blackened fingernail).  Still, it is a very forgiving project given that all your work is visible only from behind.  I then measured the spacing for the paints I wanted to hang (these!  I love them..), and pushed upholstery pins in to the cork, sealing each one with a dab of glue.  As a final precaution, I glued cardboard squares where the very tips of the pins broke through.

We practised together taking the paints on and off and it works a treat (if your paints don’t have easy loops like these, just attach a bulldog clip to the end of each tube and hang the clip on the nail instead).

When I get around to it, I’ll mount our new paint rack on the wall by Harry’s desk.  Until then, it leans at a jaunty angle against my plan chest, emitting a powerful siren song that draws us over every time.  Definitely better than a store cupboard.

Have a wonderful weekend!