Here's to Chalkin' it Up!!!

We had a LOVELY winter day last week and I was able to work outside on a few projects, so I thought I'd share one of them...

I got this frame-thingy at a thrift store awhile back, and knew that I wanted to make it a chalkboard...



It was 99 cents...:-))



It was made to accommodate an insert, so I measured the inside dimensions and cut a piece of board to slide into it...it was a super thin (about a quarter of an inch, I think) piece of plywood that I got at the local hardware store for about $4. It was actually for a different project and there was just a lot left over...then I painted the cut piece with chalkboard paint...



I was *honestly* not painting in my driveway in the middle of the night!! It was dusk when I took the pics, and turning on the flash just made it look darker...really!!! I did the recommended two coats, and then just decided to be done because I am so impatient like that!! And it works fine, but since it was unpainted wood, it would look better with more coats, so I might try to do that next spring. (Really, I should have primed, then the two coats would have been fine!!) So here it is...



I love the red color on this, and it will go great in my living room when the Christmas decorations come down!! Two more weeks!! Aaack!! :-))

Here's to Imperfection!!

AAAAACK!! I was SO excited about this idea...partly because I thought it would be a brilliant way to re-use a commonly found item, and partly because I thought it would be a simple and easy little project...I WAS SO WRONG!!!!

This project was like tripping uphill!!! EVERYTHING went wrong, but let me show you...



I thought I would take these little trays, paint them up real cute-like, make a few magnets, and have an adorable way to put up notes, pictures, cards, etc. It could work as a frame or a grocery store list holder, whatever you needed...versatile and SO cute!!



Here are a few more larger trays that I was also going to transform...

The first thing to go wrong, was that I spray paint outside, and in this breezy autumn weather, the spray paint attracted EVERY tiny piece of leaf or twig within 30 yards...and that happened with EVERY coat of paint (and I had to apply several to cover the color on the trays)...so the finish wasn't nearly as ice-smooth as I wanted...

Next, I tried to stamp the trays with cute little images, *sigh*...I do stamping so rarely, that I kindof forget all the little tricks to doing it...like don't load the stamp with too much paint, and it's hard to stamp on slick surfaces...so stamping didn't go well at all...

Then I thought I better seal the trays so that the magnets wouldn't scrape the paint...great - except that the polyurethane attracted even more STUFF than the paint...ARGH!!!

At this point I wanted to rip my hair out...but my hair is my best feature, and seeing as how I am getting older, (and therefore have wrinkling, stretch marks, and age spots) I can't afford to just go mangling the one good thing I have still going for me...;-)))

SO...this lifelong, twelve-step dropout, dedicated perfectionist took a deep breath, revised my standards for this project, and persevered.

Here are the final results:





I used plate hangers that adhere to the back, but the plate hangers that clamp around the plate would work too. (another snafu - after I snapped this picture, the hanger came off the back...apparently the adhesive wasn't meant for metal...of course it wasn't...:-))...so I just super-glued it back on!!)



The magnets were supposed to be easy, too...I just used some cute little buttons that I had...



Of course the ones I chose had wire through the middle...of course they did...:-))







SO after all of that...I still like the idea of this project, I just need to figure out less time-consuming way to execute!!! And I am just going to chalk these up to *it's the first time I did this so of course they aren't perfect*!!!!

They are, however, a LOT cuter holding a picture of my J-Bro and his wife!!! :-)))