Dry-erase repositionable message boards

Dry-erase whiteboards have become fixtures in offices, classrooms and even homes. Now there's a repositionable alternative to the porcelain-on-steel boards that offers an alternative wherever permanent or heavy wall fixtures are not an option.

Brewster Home Fashions of Massachusetts makes reusable wallpaper (introduced in this column) and dry-erase repositionable dots, both precursors to its latest innovations: dry-erase bulletin boards and calendars.

Dry-erase marker ink, formulated since the 1960s with pigment, resin and ethyl and isopropyl alcohol, evaporates on a slick surface and can be wiped away as easily as a film of pigment dust. Brewster's challenge was to make its repositionable paper smooth enough to prevent the nonpermanent ink from saturating it and making an indelible mark.

Colorful patterns and nature-inspired motifs frame Brewster's WallPops message boards or form lively backgrounds for monthly calendars. Names like Twister, Habitat or Carnivale telegraph the design inspiration.

There are various formulas for the resist used on dry-erasable paper (WallPops' formula is secret), but Brewster was "the first to make peel-and-stick erasable paper calendars," Brewster creative services manager Paula Berberian says.

When they were presented at trade shows in New York this past year, "we demonstrated on the same boards 450 to 1,000 times," Berberian adds. "We've been around since 1954. We know what works."

E-mail ideas for Material World to Zahid Sardar at home@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page K - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle