Jazzing up an old corkboard

We've had this pretty ugly corkboard for a few years now.  Kind of like this:

I had been toying with the idea of putting up a decorative alphabet in baby girl's room and wasn't sure if I should do a poster or framed prints or stencil it on the walls.  Finally, I thought, "Hey! I can paint the alphabet on that old corkboard."

So that's what I did.

I busted out my painting supplies and brushes and got to work.  First things first, I did not like the birch frame.  I grabbed some dark brown paint we already had, taped out the frame, and painted it.  Much better.

Then, I found some styles of letters I liked for inspiration from the internet and printed out a few.  I decided that I liked the idea of three rows of letters and numbers, so I taped out the spacing of the lines on the cork.  I had some white art charcoal that I used to freehand the letter and number shapes.  Once I was satisfied with the spacing and styles, I started painting.

I propped the corkboard on my dusty easel (so nice to get it out again!) and got to work.  The main colors used in our girl's room are violet, pink, orange, cream, and dark brown.  Since the frame was brown now, I used the remaining four colors in alternating order to paint the characters.

After allowing everything to dry, this is how it turned out.

Not too shabby.  I kinda like that it's not completely perfect.  It looks like it was hand-painted...just as it was.  As my hubster likes to say, "It's kitschy."  That works for me.