I Made A Kitchen Chalkboard!

Now that Spring is here I've been itching to do some housework. While it's still far too cold to do any yard work or work on my front porch, it was in the 30's today, I can still spruce up the interior of the home. The other day, I began working on touching up some of the paint that has chipped away throughout the house. Then, I decided that I really wanted to have some sort of message center in the kitchen. We do have a bulletin board, of sorts, but I wanted something different. After being totally incapable of finding my roll of cork, I decided to just have a chalkboard. The entire project was completed using materials that we already had around the house!

Since I am not handy with a saw or a drill, I had the mister construction the board bit. It already looked like a chalk board, even without the paint. Then, I spent the bulk of the weekend in a minivan travelling up north to see choral competitions. So, this had to wait until I wasn't exhausted anymore.

I first began my painting stage by painting a layer of chalkboard paint on the inside surface of the board. We did tape off the edges of the frame so that I wouldn't accidentally get paint on the it. 

I had to allow the chalk paint to dry between layers; this is when I painted the frame.

After a suggestion from the mister, I found a phrase that I liked on Pinterest and I painted that on the sides of the frame. I used white acrylic paint for this step.

After everything had dried, I "distressed" the board. I first used sandpaper to wear down some of the edges and to rub off some paint. Then, I used brown shoe polish to rub onto the exposed wood, I also smudged it over the white letters and on the sides of the frame, in order to make it look aged. I really like the way it worked out. I especially like that everything was made with materials that I already had (besides the shoe polish). Now, I can post what's for dinner and we won't have to answer the question "What's for dinner?" Also, if there's a school event coming up, we can write it on the board to remind ourselves. That is one crafty project down with many more to go. I will keep you updated as I complete more projects, Until next time~ Toodahloo!