Chalkboard Calendar DIY

Earlier this year once we finally found out we’d be moving into our very first house I did a little thrift store shopping. OK I did a lot of thrift store shopping. Call me crazy but I was an excited soon-to-be-new-homeowner and couldn’t wait to start all kinds of projects for our place. This was the time to REALLY decorate! And so I was planning. That’s what I call it, all my thrifting, planning for the new house. A girl has to be prepared for these kinds of things right? During that shopping I found these paintings at a garage sale. They were $2 each and I knew they would make some good art projects, so I grabbed them up. I planned to do a chalkboard calendar DIY.

I’ve always wanted to make a calendar for the kitchen and knew that large painting would be perfect for the job so I got to work. First I chalked it up. Three and a half coats of chalkboard paint went on the painting. I say half because there were some touch ups to make it just right. The frame got some coats of white of course, with a little distressing in there for fun.

I tried to stain the distressed parts with a darker wood stain but it didn’t quite work. I think because it still had poly on the wood color from it’s previous life and I didn’t sand it off before I spray painted it. Maybe I’ll try that on another piece. So I put things all back together and got to work on my calendar. {See that important day on the 18th? It’s coming up quick!}

I found those Chalk Ink markers at Michaels that everyone talks about. If it helps you find them, they are in the aisle with the feather boas and foam crafts parts – you know the aisle.

Since it was the 2nd last week in August when I did this, I make the calendar 6 weeks long. I used regular chalk for this to vary the texture on the calendar. Then I planned to write in the events with the chalk ink.

Here is my finished calendar. The fiance likes to cross off the dates passed. That’s his calendar job 🙂

I’ve put it in the kitchen which is where we are often like most households.  It’s on the long wall with the bead board. As you can see the other parts of the wall need decorating.

That’s my new craft for the week. I’d love to change out the graph colors for the season and think of more fun ways to spice it up. Hope you like it, thanks for visiting. This calendar is making its debut at Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Chic Cottage. Go take a look at all the fabulous things over there. And at Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous. It’s my first visit this this meet up – so many fun gals at this one! And Making Monday Marvelous at CRAFT.

 

See all of my DIY projects here.