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.}

 

Here’s a little side-by-side before and after so you can see what a change this was.

 

Thanks again to Chrissy for letting me guest post on The Taylor House.

For more from me, visit my blog, Endlessly Inspired, and follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!