DIY mini chalkboard

As promised in my previous post, I created little chalkboards to include in the goody bags I gave to the party guests.  They came out really good, and were easy and cheap!!

I was at AC Moore the other day perusing for the decorations for the minion cupcakes when I saw a jar of chalkboard paint and the little hamster wheel in my head started turning. The jar ran about $7....

The next aisle over, I found these little wooden "tavern boards" for $1 each. Lightbulb! 

I thought to myself, "I could make little chalkboard slates for the kids", knowing how much Princess loves to draw on stuff.   It took about 4 coats of the chalkboard paint to get a decent coverage on the wood.  Princess wanted to paint the ends hot pink, so I picked up some acrylic paints.  I painted the ends, and then decided to use the white acrylic paint I had picked up to paint Princess's dollhouse Adirondak chairs to paint the opposite side of the board. 

The little bottles of acrylic paint were about $1 each.  I used those sponge applicators on a stick to apply the paint.  We already had a stash of them, but I saw they were about $1 for four of those.  After getting to this point, I thought the backs were awfully plain.  Once again, I ventured out and got more acrylic paint and some stencils.  I saw these really cute rose stencils and an alphabet stencil.  I believe those were about $5 each, but you can re-use those things for like, ever!  I attempted to stencil the names using the finest brush I had with black acrylic paint, but the wood kept soaking it up, making it look splotchy.  So I had to settle for using a felt tip pen.  I then used a sealant on all surfaces except the chalkboard section.

This is what the finished product looked like, front and back.  I also gave each child a few pieces of chalk.  Your kids could even help you paint.... mine did!