Spring Break Crafternoons!

Finally, it is Spring Break! The weather is utterly gorgeous, I am energized and feeling ready to take on the world. At the very least, my backyard.

Yesterday I was browsing the internet (no pun intended), looking at garden veggies, when I came across a smoking deal on mulch for the yard. I chatted with the husband, and proceeded to buy 10 bags of the stuff. Is it kind of ridiculous that I was more excited about the prospect of new mulch for the yard at the end of the day that I was about the actual end of school for the break?

Doesn't matter. I was.

I have a To-Do list for this whole week, neatly lined out on a Post-it Note.
Saturday: Chalkboard Wall and Moss Quote
Sunday: Clean the cupboards and kitchen drawers
Monday: Closets and Garage
Tuesday: CRAFT IT UP!
Wednesday - Sunday: Get my first sunburn.

In between all of this, it is my hope to potty train my daughter. She has been on the cusp for a couple weeks now, but always gets a little gun-shy at home. Why she can do it at her daycare with others watching, but not at home is beyond me.

So, today started early, as every Saturday does, and I am completely finished with the chalkboard wall. The moss wall will have to wait until the garden shops have moss and we fix our hose outlet.

Onto the project!
We have two long, large cinderblock walls in our backyard that function as fencing. I will assume that they have been around since the dawn of time as these kind of walls are a theme throughout our neighborhood. Since the first time I laid eyes on them, I knew they needed... something. I considered hiring our talented friend Dave to paint a mural, perhaps tearing down the walls and putting up wood fencing, or even just plain painting them. Three years later, here's what's going down:


Step one: Wash the wall. As you can see Matt and Ellie got a little overzealous waiting for the actual chalkboard to be finished.

I just used water and a scrub brush I found at the Dollar Store. And yes, that is a good dish.  You can see I traced a rough oval shape with some white chalk. I won't lie, my finished product is about four or five inches larger than the original sketch. Thus is the way I craft.

Step 2: Prime! I used Kilz2 Latex Primer from Ace. It was $8.99 for the quart, and I used about half the container over two coats. The blocks didn't soak up nearly as quickly or as much primer as I thought they would. I let the first coat dry for about 20 minutes and then added the second. The second I let sit for about 30 minutes. Kilz says wait an hour between coats; I'm lazy.

Step 3: Make your chalkboard paint! I used Martha Stewart's recipe, but as per my usual, I added and subtracted. Her method is 1 cup paint + 2 tbsp unsanded grout. I used roughly 2.5 cups paint to 3tbsp grout. I went to the hardware store this morning on the mission to find the Kilz and lo, I found a mistint black for $2.50! ROCK!

 Step 4: Paint! This is just one, albeit thick, layer of paint and grout! I added the black frame with a smaller art brush I had on hand. I think it adds personality.

Voila! Gator's chalk wall!

 All said and done, this project was a little more spendy than I anticipated. I thought I'd use leftover paint we had on hand and completely neglected the priming part. Unsanded grout was $6 at Lowe's, Kilz was $8.99 and the paint was $2.50. I spent about 2 hours from start to finish, so a quick, easy project with a fun result!