our two shekels: kitchen

Chalkboarding is a lost art. Growing up in public school (Kate) green chalkboards were always associated with long days filled with lots of reading and hooked on phonics. However, as I was reading Do-It-Yourself magazine the other day, I discovered that chalkboards have become a new trend in the "do-it-yourself" world.

After reading about how simple and handy it is to use a chalkboard, Nate and I decided to dive into this do-it-yourself project and...well, do-it-OURselves.

"Why a chalkboard over a handy dry-erase board?" You may be asking, and for that, I have no good answer other than it makes for a great bonding experience and adds color to a room (we like colorful!) Because we enjoyed this project we decided to share it with you so that you, too, can share in this do-it-yourself experience (and feel achieved once your done!)

First, for our project, we used:

2 different (fun) colors of wall paint...we bought ours at Wal-Mart in the "mistinted" section and it was marked down!

Unsanded tile grout

Paint brushes

Two old window frames (we got them at an antique store for $10)

Magnetic primer (for fun magnets...optional)

We first painted on 3 layers of the magnetic primer under the paint. We let these dry overnight. (as you can see, we accidentally broke a window pane, but we just replaced that with some old cork board we had) No worries, you can't mess it up!

Then we mixed 2 TBSP grout per 1 cup of paint....it only took us 1 cup for each color.

We sanded it down after the first layer dried and added a second layer.

To hang it, we stapled ribbon to the back and hung them on the wall!

Here are some pictures of our progress!