Mirror to Bulletin Board

On one of my few recent trips to the thrift store I found this mirror made to look like a window, with a shelf and pegs underneath.  I loved it and thought it had great potential (although not in it's current red state, at least not for me).

My son holds it up while my daughter does what she does when I tell her to "Smile!"

I took the screws out of the back (thank goodness for power tools!) and took the mirror out.  I had to paint about 4 layers of white to get the red to stop showing through.  Although I could have either stripped off the red, or primed it first to help.  

Ah, that's better!

Thankfully the pegs came out very easily, and I filled the holes with caulk (although I think I should have used wood filler).  Then I mixed some brown and white paint to make a lighter brown and very lightly brushed it on with a dry, stiff-bristled brush. 

Kind of gives the effect of chipping paint without the mess or potential lead!

Then I added the new hooks I bought (being careful to avoid the peg holes).  For the cork part I SHOULD have just purchased a roll of cork sheeting, cut it to the size of the mirror and secured it to the backing board, but unfortunately I didn't have that thought until after I had already started meticulously measuring and cutting cork tiles to fit each rectangle in the "window". 

The finished product! (I had to make every caption have an exclamation point)

I'm linking to this party.