Ribbon Board. In Ten Easy Steps.

Step One. Walk into your daughter’s room and stare at the jumble of clips in dismay.

Step Two. Go to office, collect disused photo frame, length of ribbon, and piece of suitably hot pink fabric. And masking tape.

Step Three. Dump the haul on the kitchen table. Cuddle baby doing a koala impression around legs.

Step Four. Open frame and remove glass. Lay glass near fabric.

Step Five. Fold fabric so it’s kind the size of the glass plus some decent overlap.

Step Five B. Cuddle baby. Answer incessant questions from four year old about what you are doing. And WHY?

Step Six. Take piece of ribbon. Look at it. Look at glass. Fold in half twice to see if you get a decent amount of overlap. Cut at folds with kitchen scissors.

Step Six B. Don’t tell husband you used his good kitchen scissors got craft purposes.

Step Six C. See step five a.

Step Seven. Lay ribbon at roughly equal intervals. Lay fabric on top of that. Lay glass on top of that.

Step eight. Fold over fabric and ribbon on one long side. Use masking tape to hold in place. Repeat for other long edge, then short edge.

Step nine. Lay in frame. Attempt to close frame. Realise it’s too fat. Bite tongue because little ears have big mouths.

Step Nine A. See five a, six c.

Step Ten. Realise glass is just misaligned, remove, reinsert carefully, close back and fill with clips.

Step Ten A. Wonder how a bald 8 month old has some many clips.

Step Ten B. Wonder where the rest of the clips have gone.