Chalkboard Art

I've had a few people asking me to do a tutorial for my chalk art.  So ...here it is!

I've had my 4th of July chalkboard up for quite some time, so I decided that with it being almost August (craziness!) that if I was going to do a "Summer Chalkboard" that this would be my only time to do it, because Fall (MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE TIME OF THE YEAR!!!) is just around the corner y'all ;o)

In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to clean your chalkboard, how to get rid of "ghosting" (as best as possible) and how to draw on your chalkboard and make it oh so pretty :o)

So here is my chalkboard...

Cute right? LoL :o)

So to begin cleaning my board I just took a regular old washcloth and wiped it down.

Pretty bad right?

So, then I took that washcloth and wiped it down with warm water.

It looks great wet, but then it starts to dry and looks like this...

No bueno!! The "ghosting" from my previous masterpiece is showing through pretty bad.  So I researched online (God bless the world wide web!) and found a simple solution of warm water and vinegar that gets rid of most of the "ghosting".

You mix 1/2 c of vinegar with warm water and wipe off your board with a microfiber cloth (to prevent leaving lint on your board).  I washed my board twice with this solution and it came out pretty good!  There were still a few marks left, but not nearly as bad as before!

So, now that your board is clean figure out what you want to draw.  I got my inspiration from a pretty little picture of someone else's chalkboard that I found on Google images (the old school version of Pinterest LoL).

So let's get started!  To make your drawing bright and vibrant just dip the tip of the chalk into a glass of water.  When you first start drawing it's going to look like its barely showing up, but don't worry you're doing it right.  When the chalk dries it will show up super bright!  The first thing I like to do is draw out my border so I know how much space I have to work with.  

Once the border is drawn out, I take a ruler (or a ridiculously long yardstick because I can't find my ruler) and draw a faint line to help with the lettering.  I do everything free handed.  And even though I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, I find that the "not so perfectionism" of doing everything free handed adds to the charm and character of chalk art :o)  I think that's one of the things I like most about chalk art is that you can play around with it, tweak it and make it your own (even if you're copying someone else's chalkboard art)!

Once I'm finished I like to get a wet q-tip and erase all the lines I made for the lettering and for the little mistakes I've made along the way to clean up my board.  And the q-tips are great for getting in those small spaces!

And viola!  Now you have your very own personalized piece of art that you can change year round and for all occasions!

So hang that bad boy up on your wall and be proud of it!  Because you my friend are now a master at chalk art ;o)

What type of things do you like to draw on your chalkboard? If you have any tips and suggestions about chalkboarding I'd LOVE to hear them!  Happy "Hump Day" and I hope you are all having an awesome week!