♥
For Christmas I made Ryan these chalkboard menu squares!
We’ve been making weekly menus for ourselves for a little while now. It makes grocery shopping so much faster and easier, and we get “refrigerator coma” less often { have you seen those commercials? }. I love knowing that all of our meals are pre-planned and that the ingredients are available and ready to be pulled together at any moment!
Making the squares was easy. I’d love for you to give it a try! Here’s what I did:
I went to a home improvement store and found my way to the lumber aisle. I looked for a thin, light piece of wood { if it’s too heavy it won’t hang easily } with a very smooth surface. Splintering or rough wood will make it harder for you to paint on the chalkboard, and then when you’re finished the surface will most likely still be pretty rough. I had an employee cut the large square into eight small pieces for me.
When I got home, I sanded down the corners so they were rounded. I sanded all of the sides as well to make them smoother before applying the paint. I applied three layers of chalkboard paint and let each layer dry for 24 hours. I played it very safe, just in case, but if you’re short on time check the paint jar for details on the drying process.
After my chalkboard paint had had plenty of time to dry, I used regular acrylic paint to add the letters. The first square isn’t really necessary, I suppose, but I liked the look of two rows of four so I included it.
For mounting, I hot glued some slightly bent wire to the back of each square, then set them each on their own hooks. This way I can remove the boards easily every week when we update our menu!
I came home from work one day to find that Ryan had made and installed a chalk holder! I was delighted! He used some of the wood from an empty clementine box, and some hot glue to hold it all together. I had considered making some sort of a chalk holder before, but hadn’t settled on any good ideas, so I was really happy to see this when I came home that day. What a smartie!
You can customize your menu boards by choosing different colours of chalkboard paint, regular paint for the text, and even the font you decide to paint on. If you wanted to get really creative you could try differently shaped boards, or keep the menu on one large sheet of wood. For an even quicker DIY, just get a ready made chalkboard and paint on letters for the days of the week!
Have fun making your chalkboard menu! I’d love to see what you all come up with!
xx.
