Chalkboard Art, HometoCottage

I’m a novice at chalkboard art, but I sure am having fun learning as I’m experimenting with it… Here are a couple of tips I have learned so far.

There are a couple of chalkboards in our kitchen… well, sort of… One is a bonafide chalkboard, the other one is a little too shiny for a chalkboard, but I’ve been treating it like one for now.

It’s actually a magnet board/advent calendar we got at Starbucks on clearance, and I thought it was meant to be a chalkboard, but after using it a couple of times I don’t think so.

This is what I just put on it this week:

I totally got this entire chalkboard design idea from Beyond the Picket Fence, I have it pinned on my Pinterest board. Their piece is tons cuter, with real wood, and paint, and someday I’d like to do that, but I wanted to update this little chalkboard, so I just did a bit of faux woodgrain on it with chalk and it’s fine for now. I do love having Bible verses around the house, it’s amazing how quickly our granddaughters memorize them, without even working at it!

So my tip for this one?? Probably would be to not use any type of a glossy surface for chalkboard art… It’s really not very fun working with. The chalk slides around a lot and sometimes doesn’t leave a mark at all.

The other chalkboard in our kitchen, I bought from Ballard Designs a long time ago. (the one I have is the Acanthus, large size) It is officially a chalkboard. 😉

For Christmas, I did this:

I love this Bible verse, and this winded up staying on the chalkboard a bit past Christmas. (ok, I admit it, it was there until this week, my oldest granddaughter said it best though, “The Bible verse is good for all year, it’s just the star design that’s the Christmas part”)

I did, however, decide on a new Spring fashioned design for the chalkboard… The inspiration for these tulips, again on my Pinterest Board, came from myflowerjournal.com.

I’ve been teaching my granddaughters a lot lately about recognizing their own path God has for them. Encouraging them to see how they are each unique individuals. I’ve been encouraging them to shine with: who they are and what they have been given, to bloom where they are planted, to not to try to be someone else or something else that they are not.

I think it’s a good lesson for all of us to revisit, even us old people. There seems to be such a strong pull towards jealousy, and living up to others expectations in our culture lately. But God clearly tells us that He has plans for us, and that they are good plans.

Jeremiah 29: 11-13 “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

So why do we spend so much time, money and effort trying to fit in the mold of what others decide is a good plan? It will lead to futility, and deep unhappiness if we are constantly trying to be something we weren’t intended to be. Or at least not intended to be for this present time… sometimes we have to be patient with the current situation and be happy and shine in it, or ‘bloom’ in it, patiently waiting for the next phase in life that will have its own to offer later.

So here is what I came up with for the large chalkboard art for this Spring…

And here are just a few tips I’ve discovered for creating this chalkboard art:

First, I print off, from the computer onto paper, in my decided font the words I’m going to draw on the board. This gives me something that I can keep referring to as I’m drawing it on the board. (the ‘BLOOM‘ font is: Algerian, and the ‘where you are planted‘ font is: Bell MT) (for the tulip art, I just had my phone and looked the Pinterest pin as I drew my version of it onto the chalkboard)

Another tip is that I’ve learned to dip the piece of chalk in a glass of water to get it wet. At first it seems like it’s not working, but as it dries you can see how much more bolder it is this way.

Oh and one more tip is to use damp Q-tips for cleaning up around the edges, erasing draft lines or little mistakes etc.

This large chalkboard hangs on the end of the fridge surround. You see it when you come in the back door, and from the breakfast room… this picture was taken from one of the doorways of the breakfast room looking into the kitchen.

I am just having fun with creating this temporary art, and if you haven’t done any chalkboard art yet, I encourage you to try your hand at it. If the first time it doesn’t work out, just wipe it with a damp paper towel and do it again. Like the first draft I did of the small board this week, after I got it done and went to hang it back up, I realized I had done the whole thing upside down! A quick wipe with the damp paper towel, and it was a clean board for me to do it again… this time right side up. 🙂 Nothing could be more forgiving, as far as art goes.

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