Hanging my Finished Joggles Block

After adding the beaded edging to the block I made in the Joggles class, I had to find a way to frame it or hang it. I had been mulling over several ideas including putting it in a shadow box; however, I wanted it to be accessible... so it could be admired and fawned over, if you know what I mean!! hehe... hee. Anyway, I bought a shadow box that opened up, which was really cool, but it was rectangular and the block was square and I just couldn't get it to look right.

So, on to the next idea, backing the block with a fabric covered something so it could hang on the wall. I had the brilliant idea (at least I thought it was brilliant) of using an artist's canvas covered with batting and fabric. A visit to an artist's store showed that it was an idea that would probably work, but the canvases were pretty expensive and they didn't have any square ones that were the right size to back my 10" block.

However, in my wandering around the store, I found some French bulletin boards. You know the ones, they are covered with batting and then crisscrossed with ribbons so you can either pin things to them or slip bits of paper under the ribbons. This is what I found:



It was in the clearance bin because one of the oh-so-chic plastic hula dancers had come off. Hmmm, this I could work with. I took it home and popped off the remaining oh-so-chic plastic Hawaiian cuties, and cut off the ribbons... yes, I saved them, why do you ask?? :0) Then I covered it with some dark green fabric, hot gluing it around the edges, and it looked like this:



Not too bad, hmm?? This is what it looks like on the back:



The places where the ribbons crossed had been attached with heavy duty staples that went clear thru to the back, providing holes to pass the needle thru to attach the CQ block. I used beading thread and hid the thread in amongst the embellishments on the front and used a button on the back. I did hot glue the button down because I didn't really trust it just sitting there.

Here is the finished product:



It frames the CQ block nicely, lifting it away from the wall and showing off the beaded edging. I think it works!

I do think I'll revisit the artist's canvas idea, though.