DIY: Chalkboard Sign

Hi there! I’m Jenn from Endlessly Inspired, and I am so excited to be doing a guest post for The Taylor House! Last week on my blog, I shared the before pictures of my guest room. {Please don’t judge me. I’m mortified that people are actually seeing these.}

I wanted to include some type of sign with a sweet saying on it for our guests, and I am pretty much obsessed with all things chalkboard {as you can also see in these examples}. However, as my goal is to spend less than $300 on the whole room, I knew it was DIY time. Enter this bad boy.

Oh heck yes. I don’t even have words for how awesomely god-awful this thing was. I found it at Goodwill for $3.99, and while most people would just see a badly painted sign that my Grandma wouldn’t have even hung in her house, I looked beyond the hideousness and saw that it was actually a pretty cool shape and could be awesome with a little help.

Makeover time! I started by taking off the super-attractive leather cord, and spray painted the entire thing with flat black. Once the paint was dry, I rubbed the side of a piece of chalk all over the front.

{If you look closely, you can still see the ghost of some of those super pretty flowers. Those suckers are going to haunt my dreams.} Once you cover the entire thing with chalk, gently wipe it with a soft cloth.

Now, if you’re all artsy and talented and can write letters on your own, then more power to you, just go freehand. Personally, I preferred that the finished product didn’t look like something my son made in Kindergarten, so I laid it out in PicMonkey and printed it out. To transfer the image to the board, I rubbed chalk over the back of the paper, flipped it over and placed it where I wanted it, and traced the letters with a pencil.

When I was all finished, it looked like this.

Because I was making the sign permanent, I decided to use chalk markers for the lettering. They are awesome and I use them all the time — SO much easier than actual chalk. I just went over all the transferred letters with the marker and let it dry.

Once it dried, I rubbed it again with chalk {if chalk rubbing is your thing, you totally hit the jackpot with this tutorial. Just sayin’.} and again wiped it off with a soft cloth.

Then I just added a ribbon, and ta-dah!! I have a cute little sign to welcome our guests. {You know, once our guest room no longer looks like a cell at Leavenworth.}