2.28.2011

Fun And Easy Chalkboard

I have been thinking about a way to keep track of things and the idea of a chalkboard painted on the wall seemed like a great thing to try out. So, I bought the spray paint and waited for my husband to apply it to the wall. I waited 2 weeks. Then the wire basket that holds all of my fruits and veggies fell down one morning and I decided that I was just going to go ahead and do it.

I didn't really know what I was doing, but I'm a "wing it" kind of girl. So, I cut up a few cereal boxes and used silly putty to put them against the wall. When I ran out of that I used tissue paper for the rest. This certainly wasn't an exact science, but, I knew I was going to be painting a fat border around it so I wasn't super concerned. I did do a test coat on a pizza box just to get a feel of how it was going to spray, then I just went for it. Sweeping back and forth as evenly as I could. I knew that if I messed this up it was just going to be ammunition for Shawn later to complain that I should have waited (for who knows HOW long), so I was very careful to watch for drips.


After all of the coats were on and I was satisfied with the way it looked, I took down the paper.
THIS was the fun part I had been waiting for. I love being creative, so painting a fun border around this was something that I was really looking forward to. I began with my purple paint to make sure that the chalkboard part was even, so I enclosed the whole thing with a border of purple, but it was all freehand from there. When that was finished I topped it all off with folky dots all around the inside of the border and around the inside of the frame.

 I used a Q-Tip with the cotton pulled off one end and then simply dipped it into the paint to make the dots. They weren't all uniform, but that's how I like it.

The chalkboard had to sit for 24 hours before being able to write on it, which was hard - but not as hard as it was to find chalk! I ended up waiting almost 48 hours because every store I went to didn't have any. I finally found some at Hobby Lobby. Apparently, before you use it you are supposed to cover the entire surface with chalk and then erase it....well, I used kind of a damp rag (I didn't know) and it made the board a lot more cloudy that I would have liked it. BUT, I did a little research and learned that I could put a few drops of lemon oil on a rag and seal it in a plastic bag overnight. This should replenish the board. If worse comes to worse I will have to throw on another layer of chalkboard paint which would be inexpensive and fairly easy to do. But, for now, the board certainly does serve it's purpose so we'll just ride it out and see if the oil works.


I'm really happy with it!

1 comment:

Janine said...

I am SO JEALOUS of this! If I didn't live in a rental apartment I would be dropping my laptop to go buy chalkboard paint right this minute. It turned out amazing!