Pottery Barn has this pretty little chalkboard in the catalog for $99.00 right now. I was looking at this and thinking it would be so handy but $99? No thanks.
So here is a super simple chalkboard that I made and a few ways I have used it so far. This idea actually came to me from my friend Jessica. We worked together on a Family Night gift basket for a school auction a few weeks ago and she made this beautiful chalkboard to go along with the basket. It was a cute addition to a family night basket because it can be used to keep scores for games and things (at least that is how we staged it).
Now Jessica really went all out- she used sheet metal and covered it with chalkboard paint, and then added a wood frame from Michael’s and lovely Annie Sloan paint. It turned out to be really fun and functional and I was thinking boy we need one too! But then I realized I needed a shortcut. The chalkboard Jessica made was super cool and large and I figured a smaller one would serve our purposes just fine so here is what I did:
I bought a chalkboard at Hobby Lobby- it was $7.99 and I used the 40% off coupon they offer each week. The Hobby Lobby one comes with a cheap frame and I wanted to make that more substantial so I stopped at Lowe’s and found some molding. That was about $4 for a huge strip. Careful here because molding can be crazy expensive so I stuck with a pretty simple one.
My wonderful husband just cut the molding on a table saw and attached it to the original frame with a nail gun.
I used wood filler for the corners and the little nail holes (totally worth this step- it makes a world of difference.)
Next was the paint. I didn’t bother to Prime it and I just used a blueish-grey that we had sitting around. I think it sort of looks like Annie Sloan paint, Duck Egg Blue, which is what I was going for. I do like the Pottery Barn black so I might paint it black at some point. I think the black looks a little fancier.
And that was it! About $10 total and then maybe an hour of time or so and now I have a cute little chalkboard!
Here are a few ways we used it recently:
I used my Silhouette to make a {Menu} sign and a little image for a Cowgirl Birthday party. The Menu title looks so crooked to me in the picture but I swear in person it looked good 😉 . The nice thing about the Silhouette vinyl is that you can just peel it right off when you want to change things up.
And I take pictures of the girls with a big thank you sign for greeting cards every year. I make these little cards for our teacher’s and usually I just print a thank you sign for them to hold.
This year I love the chalkboard because you can see their little handwriting when they wrote out their names. I will probably use this same idea for 1st Day of school and end of year photos and have the girls write their names and ages or school year on the chalkboard.
And recently I have been using it as a Menu Planning board in the kitchen. I have this wierd space behind the sink that I never know what to do with and it fits perfectly there. Plus my little vintage car that I love has a purpose now (holding chalk).
And last but not least it is so lightweight I just attached it to the side of the kitchen cabinets with Command Hanging Strips. This is a cute little message board or use it for fun or inspirational quotes like Pottery Barn did.
So that’s it! About $9 and a little time and you have something super functional.
And here is another super easy project- DIY drawer liners:
esmeralda says
thats really nice! love the idea!!
Janel says
Super cute. I have the Pottery Barn chalkboard (I got with giftcards, while on sale…) and I love it. It is a lot bigger than the one you made and it’s magnetic, so I don’t feel quite as bad about buying it (versus making one). But yours is adorable! 🙂
Charlene says
Janel,
This size is what I wanted to fit the side of the cupboard but there are larger sizes to buy as well.