My First Attempt at a Chalkboard

*WARNING* Once again I have managed to include to many pictures in my post!

So I have known for awhile now that I needed a large piece of artwork for my kitchen (there is a large hole in the wall from the old stove venting hose). 

And I have really been inspired by chalkboards lately...and really, aren't chalkboards a great alternative to art in the kitchen?  so I have been on the hunt for a large frame with some classically inspired embellishments.  So while shopping at a local consignment shop at lunch one day a couple of weeks ago I spotted this little lady...

(Miss Bunny B in the corner)

Her coloring was pretty hideous, but she was heavy and substantial, had great lines, and the artwork was hideous enough that I wasn't going to feel bad about spray painting over it and then just ripping it out.

 

so I headed to my local Ace Hardware store and picked up some supplies...

A piece of scrap 1/2" plywood that they had in stock cut down to the correct size (I brought my frame in with me and the guy who cut it took it in the back with him so he could get the right measurements), some magnetic spray paint (which ended up being a money pit), some chalkboard paint, foam sponges, spray primer and pink spray paint.

Because I was using spray primer I didn't sand the frame at all; however, I did sand the plywood with a 320 grit sanding block before I spray primered it.

After the first coat of primer...

(Miss Bunny B again...she just LOVES to refinish things!)

So I then moved on to spray painting just the frame in Ballet Slipper pink.  (The house I rent was built in the 1920's and has a very cute vintagey feel.  So I have tried to keep in line with the feel of kitchen and spice it up with very retro feeling colors and artwork.)

The color came out beautifully but it had that I-just-spray-painted look and feel.  So I tried my luck with my first attempt at glazing (more on that here).  It came out pretty good in my opinion.  so I took to pulling the artwork out and installing my chalkboard painted piece of plywood.

All I had on hand were round staples for my staple gun...so I just went with it!  And once I was done, I tried nailing in a finishing nail at an angle to finish things off.  Now the first one worked out great...but the second one...went right through the plywood and not into the frame.  Oops!  Guess I didn't go in with enough of an angle...

So I just moved on and took it in stride!  I decided to no longer use the finishing nails and felt confident that my chalkboard was secure in its frame with the staples.  So I just touched up the blemish with some chalkboard paint (a pretty thick coat to fill it in, since the rest of the plywood got a three coat finish).

And it ended up being just fine...

You can barely notice it.  Now for my little rant about the spray paint magnetic surface.  I didn't want to spend $28.99 for the 1 quart can of the magnetic paint, so I opted for the $8.99 bottle of spray paint.  Now the coverage on the can says 2-3 square feet.  Now my piece of plywood is a little larger then that at just over 4 sq. ft. so I only sprayed around the outside edges and left the middle un-magnetized.  I figured this was fine since I would be the only person sticking magnets up there and i would know the limitations.  HOWEVER, after it dried, not even my super dooper strong magnets would stay on...the just slid right down.  So back to Ace I go and pick up another can, and go over the same surface area again.  After this can is exhausted I realized that the super dooper magnets would stick, but no regular magnets (AKA cute ones).  So back I go for a third can.  Now I have invested $27 in magnetic spray paint and should have gotten 6-9 sq. ft. of coverage out of the cans.  But after the chalkboard paint was added (which is fine according to the magnetic spray paint can), still only the super strong magnets will stick...and just barely.  Maybe, maybe they will hold a single sheet of paper up.  Long story short, don't waste your money on this!

Moving on...now my chalkboard is finished!  Although in the end it ended up coating me much more then I thought it would...$96.00 in total!  But I guess I will learn from my magnetic mistakes.

All in all my kitchen looks much better with the chalkboard.  And tonight will be 3 days since the last coat of chalkboard paint was applied...so I can condition it and use it for the first time!

 and here is the before and after for all of you voyeurs out there!!!

 

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My Version of a Glazing Tutorial

*WARNING* There are a LOT of pics in this post...FYI.

So admittedly I have never glazed before…or distressed anything that I have just painted (that is still to come). But I wanted to make the artwork that I was going to hang in my kitchen look a little older and not so much like it just got spray painted…which it did. So I have read in other peoples blogs that you can create a glaze by simply adding water to acrylic or latex paint. And since I have plenty of that lying around…I did just that. I started with these supplies…

…to get this.

But it turned out a little more blue than black like I was envisioning…but I thought I would try it out and see how I liked it anyways. This was the look I was trying to achieve…or match/complement anyway.

So I started by dipping my little foamy guy in the “glaze” and then pushing it up against the side of the container to get most of the liquid out. Since it turned out to be the consistency of water…I didn’t want the glaze to drip all over (which it did anyways).

Then I just dabbed it all along the detailing that I wanted to antique.

  

Then I just rubbed it down with a lightly damp sponge (again, not to wet because I already had enough dripping), and really focused on getting the dark paint spots off so that it appeared more glazey (yeah yeah not a word I know). And I ended up with it looking like this. Now it looks good, but still a little too blue for me.

So I added this and this…

To get this…

And I did a second round. I did it on both the smaller frame and my chalkboard frame so they would match the first frame that inspired me.

And this time I wiped it down with an almost completely dry papertowel..

And I was happy with this look.  So then I tried the same formula again with the larger chalkboard frame that I was also working on...since these three are going to be grouped together in my kitchen I wanted them to match each other.

So I ended up with a little bit of a mess...but nothing too bad.

 And so here they are...all together.  Don't they look cute together? 

It really made my kitchen look better to go from this to this!

 

So One More Post About Artwork For My Very Bare Walls!

While perusing Blogger-land last week I came across this inspirational picture on a post (forgive me…I don’t remember whose blog it was).

And I loved it! Not only for its very sweet message, but also because I need artwork for my walls and it matches the color of my living room. And I just happen to have this bare wall that is crying out for something to be hung on it (not unlike the rest of my walls!)

I also had a frame from the $25.00 craigslist frames that isn’t a standard size – it appears to be 8x11 ½. So I printed this off on the color laser printer I have at my desk at work, and brought it home. The size looked a little off, so I trimmed the edges of the print and backed it with some Italian Bertini paper I had lying around from Paper-Source. This made it look much better.

I know it is strange (or just plain lazy) to back my paper directly onto the backing of the frame, but in this case it worked out just fine.

Now for the frame itself, I didn’t want to leave it the awful Gold color that it was, so I decided to spray paint it using two different finishes. Both are from the Rust-Oleum line of Universals, and I went with the Metallic Silver and Brown Hammered cans.

The way I achieved the effect I was going for was to spray two coats of the silver spray paint directly onto the frame (no primer) and with only about 30 second in between the coats. It’s ok if the coats are a little thick and it is ok if the spray paint runs a little. As soon as I was done applying the silver, I immediately applied two coats of the Hammered spray paint on the still wet silver paint. This mixes the paint colors together, and since the hammered paint settles on the frame in a weird way anyways, once again drips don’t matter. I then gave the frame a good 4-5 minutes to dry a little before I applied one more thick coat of the brown hammered paint and then let it dry overnight. This gives it that sort of marbled looking finish.

I really like this finish and I did it on a couple of the frames for another project I will be completing soon (the rest of the $25.00 frame lot from craigslist). I realize that it is not for everybody, but I like that it is slightly different from the simple “flat” finish that you usually get with spray painting something.

I even really like it on this dresser/sideboard in my living room (the picture is very deceiving as the colors appear to clash here, but in person they match and complement each other beautifully), but my bare walls need it more than the sideboard does. What do you think?

And I am sorry for the poor quality of some of the photos. My 3G iPhone just doesn’t take very good pictures…so I guess it is time to upgrade to the iPhone 4. It seems like it just might be a necessity!!!

Once again, it was really great to go from this:

To This!!!

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