Chalkboard Art

I will admit I have a Pinterest Problem.

In the midst of this social media craze, women of all walks of life are planning their upcoming nuptials (real or fantasy).  I peruse Pinterest daily, and see the newest and hottest trends surfacing in front of me.

One of these trends happens to be something, which takes us all back to our childhood… ye’olde chalkboard.

Some of these chalkboards could be straight out of a magazine! The amount of detail, font choice and creative typography blew me away. Surely I would need one of these fancy boards for our wedding!

Now, let’s talk price… for curiosity sake, I checked Etsy, and promptly fell off my chair. Chalkboards (without text) sized at 30×30 can run anywhere between $80 – $200. Chalkboards and Chalkboard Art with text can run anywhere between $160 – $400.

Ok… purchasing a chalkboard clearly wasn’t in the cards, and let’s face the fact that this wedding was all Do It Yourself.

Here’s what I did…

Scouted…. I went to yard sales, thrift stores, and my neighbour’s garage and scavenged for old ugly frames; which sheltered horrible oil renditions of landscapes or bullfighters.

In fact, I went a bit overboard. I ended up collecting over 15 frames and it looked like I had a frame cemetery in my Dad’s garage.

I grabbed my favourite frame, pulled apart all of its guts (hideous painting) and removed any stray staples or nails from it.

I prepped the frame by cleaning it with a damp rag, using a vinegar and water solution. I then gave it a light sand, and primed it.

I found a great metallic silver spray paint, and applied about 3-4 coats.

Stage 1 complete!

I needed a new backing for this soon-to-be chalkboard of awesomeness. I searched and searched but it was a really large frame, and pretty impossible to find a piece of material that would fit. Plywood it was… So Polish, I know.

The plywood was filled in with some wood filler (so you wouldn’t see too many grooves), and about 3-5 coats of chalkboard paint was applied. Once everything dried, the frame was reassembled with its new chalkboard counterpart.

Fancy new chalkboard deserves some fancy font…

Since our wedding was one big multi-cultural event, what better use for this board than being a drink menu board.

I utilized the fonts from our invitation to create a streamline look and feel. I fired up illustrator and designed our menu, utilizing some other fun vector graphics, such a stars and of course… Star Wars font!

But Alex, how did you get the text on the board!?

The million dollar question was “how did you do all of the text?”.  My answer has always been “Old Technology”.

Living with teachers has perks. I asked my dad if he had an old overhead I could borrow… which he did! The glass was cracked, and there was a dead spider sprawled between the two pieces of glass, which added a very interesting pattern when projected onto a wall. Hahaha…

All I did was print my menu onto 8.5×11 overhead paper, and trace my design onto my blackboard! There is a trick to this. Popular to contrary belief; I did not use traditional chalk to trace my text.  I purchased chalkboard markers. I had watched two girls from Starbucks create some new menu items, and was fascinated with these “chalk pens” they were using.

And this was my finished product: