I’m sure you guys have seen posts that talk about the chalkboard we have on our mantle. (Here’s a couple: here and here.)

I’ve had a few questions about where it came from, and it’s time we spill the beans on that project: We made it.

Yup, and it was easy, and you can make one, too! Here’s how:

We started with two empty picture frames. I’m not really sure where they came from, but I know we used them at our wedding reception in the photobooth area.

(Thanks to Ashley and Tyler, who got to model the frames in this post because they seem to be the only ones who used both in one photo.)

Well, as you can see, the frames were originally a plain, medium wood tone. Pretty boring, right?

But I knew I could reuse them in some way, so Hubs picked up a sheet of 4’x4’x¼ plywood at Home Depot. It’s very thin and pretty lightweight, and it came in small sheets, which were easy to cut down to the size we needed to fit our frames.

The first frame got a yellow coat of paint, and some words and stripes painted on the board. You might recognize it from our entryway.

The other frame got a white coat of paint (actually several, including primer) and the board inside got a few coats of chalkboard paint.

 

Here’s how the two boards (one white before stripes and words, and one chalkboard) looked before we placed them in the frames .

I didn’t take a lot of photos of this process because it’s really about as easy as you can get, but I will say that my best tip to offer is to follow the directions on the back of the paint can.

I painted several coats, and sanded each time in between to get a smooth surface, as much as possible. It’s still going to be more bumpy that a regular chalkboard.

I used the same technique to make the chalkboards we used at our wedding reception photobooth. (If you missed it, there’s one in the photo, above.) Those now hang in my office with some (hopefully) inspiring reminders to gaze at when I’m stuck on a story.

 

To attach the board to the frames, we went super hi-techie-techie. (Phrase borrowed from this Big Bang Theory episode. Note: the scene doesn’t end all that PG…)

As in, we used tape.

 

And it’s really holding up just fine so I’d say there’s no reason to glue it, although you could if you wanted.

So there’s the story of our quote board, otherwise known as a homemade chalkboard.

Have you ever made something using chalkboard paint? I love the stuff, but it can be tricky. Any tips or tricks to share?