Foam Core Cornice Board

I showed y'all our living room tour a couple weeks ago. (If you missed it check it out here.) 

Now that we have lived in the house for a little while I realized its not really as "finished" as I thought. There are a few things that still need to be done; 1. cover our plaid chair!! (I would LOVE to make a slip cover but I'm a little nervous, any suggestions?!) 2. figure out the wires behind the TV 3. how to make our AC unit less huge and ugly and finally add some window treatments.
I added some sheer curtains to the large window and want to get some more for the single window but just haven't gotten around to it. But it still didn't look as finished as I had hoped.
Check out this before and after shot and you'll understand :)

So I added the cornice! I've never lived any where with a cornice, my mom just didn't need them. She always had nicer treatments that finished the window well. But the cheap curtains and rods that I was able to get on our budget just didn't look good. So I needed a cheap fix.

Annnd after searching the web I found this post on how to build a cornice out of nothing but fabric and FOAM CORE BOARD! 

Yes. you read that right. FOAM CORE BOARD! 

The lovely ladies over at Creating a Beautiful Life shared their version of this project a few weeks ago on my Making Monday link party (A weekly link party to help inspire you on those rough Monday Mornings, Please join us any time!!). I saved it to my computer and knew this was the solution to my window issue.
This week I finally had the time to go buy the supplies and sit down to make my own foam core cornice board! 

If you know me at all I don't really follow directions. Not that I don't listen, but I am queen of reading a tutorial, recipe, or directions over once or twice and then putting it away while I make it for myself. Reed thinks it's weird but I say it just helps me keep my creative juices flowing :)
So the tutorial from the ladies at Creating a Beautiful Life was great, I didn't really follow it to a T.

So lets get started!
Materials:

-2 elmers foam core boards
-packaging tape

- 4x10 drop cloth (it was the cheaper paper style drop cloth)

Step 1:
I decided I wanted my cornice board to be 10in tall and it needed to be 54 inches to cover the window width. So I measured out the board and it worked out perfect that I could use 1 board split in half.

Step 2:

Now break out your tape, I used packaging tape because I have loads of it on hand. But I think you could get away with almost any type of tape. I found that taping across the seam first helped sturdy it up and then wrapped the seam completely once or twice (sorry forgot to photograph that part!)

Step 3:

cut the sides for your cornice. I didn't really know how far I wanted the cornice to stick off from the wall so I just chose to do 5 inches. I think it works really well and it left just enough room for me to add a curtain rod if I want to later.

Step 4: 

To attach your side panels you can do a few different things. Pictured below I hot glued and taped the panels together. Using a thin bead of glue to secure the board and then tape to round off the edges.
However, I took a different approach for the second board, simply because I was to lazy to get out the glue gun :) So what I did this time was just use lots more tape!  I used the same technique across the seam as I did when taping the two larger halves. Basically I just taped and taped until it didn't wiggle to much :) 

Step 5: 

Adding the fabric! This is the point where my tutorial differs the most from the tutorial from Creating a Beautiful Life. So what I did was take the drop cloth and cut it large enough to fold around the cornice board. Then I took a stapler and got going!  Yep thats it. An office stapler that I just took around the edge of the board rotating from one side to the other to keep from pulling the fabric one way over the other. 

Step 6: 

When I got to the edges I folded it like you would wrap a present.  I don't think I'm gonna be able to explain it in words so here are some pictures to explain better than me :) 

Step 7: 

HANG IT!

Yep thats it you are done building the cornice board!

Now I didn't take pictures of how I hung it mostly because I forgot. But also because there are lots of ways to do it. You could use D hooks and simply hang on a nail, or even just use velcro to attach directly to your curtain rod/wall. What I did was a cheap version with just what  I had on hand. I used some thick waxed thread that  I threaded through the side panel and tide in a knot and hung on nails. With how light weight the board is it doesn't seem to really matter how you hang it :) 

I really like it a lot! SO simple to make and I'm pretty sure it took maybe an hour at the most. Great way to finish up a room with out spending much money at all! Now I just need some help figuring out how to clean up that window unit and nest of wires!! 

Check out HERE for where I link up