Cork board turtle

Materials: 5 packs of HEAT cork trivets, primer, paint, damage-free hanging strips


Description: This is a pretty simple hack, but we were happy with it and wanted to share.

We live away from both our families and wanted to hang a cork board in our son's wall to post snapshots of his friends and family. We went to Ikea with the intention of buying a framed cork board, but on our way through the kitchen section, we saw the 7" round HEAT cork trivets. At that time we didn't have a specific plan for them, but once we got home we started brainstorming.

At first we thought about just hanging the trivets in a rectangle, then quickly decided we needed a more interesting pattern. With all kinds of leftover paint in the basement we also thought a bit of color would be nice. Inspiration really struck when we had the trivets on the floor trying to figure out a good pattern. Thus was born the cork board turtle.

We used 14 total trivets (12 for the shell, one for the head, and one cut in half for the feet). The cork absorbs the paint quite a bit, so it is recommended to prime them first. Each trivet took one coat of primer and two coats of paint. The paint used here is Glidden premium eggshell interior paint (they were actually "tintable testers" from another project, which is a pretty inexpensive way to get 8oz of this type of paint).

They are held in place with one Command damage-free hanging strip per trivet.

~ Mark Marion, Reston, VA