Adventures with a Can of Chalkboard Paint, Part VI

Enough with the fiddly little brushes and delicate strokes -- over Christmas, we added a seven foot chalkboard panel to the kitchen of my parents' Old Rectory.

It's the perfect outlet for my family's quirky humour -- each day, we have a new quote on the board, under the heading "Wise Piggy Says." As the border makes the chalkboard look rather like a door (I admit, I almost walked into it the first night it was up), characters tend to appear looking through the post box, or slipping in through the cat flap, and is an endless source of fun!

Under the Tree

We've had a few mysterious presents turn up under the Christmas tree this year. I think we'll need to leave a little plate of cookies outside the door to feed all of our generous wandering guests.

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Adventures With a Can of Chalkboard Paint, Part V

This little piggy got painted.

Now, to find more animals for the chalkboard farmyard...

Adventures with a Can of Chalkboard Paint, Part IV

As you might imagine in the home of a Brit, there's always a cup of tea on the go. And with my Mum here this week, there's suddenly a need for two cups, and for a way to tell them apart.

Solution: plain wooden coasters + chalkboard paint

A little bit of chalk, and it's easy to tell which is your cup, which has added sugar...

...or to give a friendly warning!

And no need to limit them to use just with hot drinks. Instead of scribbling guests names on plastic cups at your next get-together, why not give them real drinking glasses, and a coaster with their name on it?

(Linking to Kirsty at Creative Space today!)

Adventures with a Can of Chalkboard Paint, Part III

For some reason, I find that things taste better when eaten out of a glass jar.

And with just a little chalkboard paint, and a scrap of pretty paper, it's quite easy to disguise the fact that these are, in fact, old pasta-sauce containers.

For instructions on painting the labels onto the jars, try this tutorial. I would advise starting with recycled jars like these, rather than buying new jars specially for it, so that if something goes wrong it doesn't matter too much.

And for instructions on covering the lids, have a look here.

And don't limit yourself to food! I also plan to have jars for buttons, pompoms, and for all the bits and bobs to make my Christmas wall tree. And Justin has requested a jar to store nails and screws, and one for all the spare change he piles up around the house.

As always, if you have a go yourself, please post a link, as we'd all love to see!

Adventures with a Can of Chalkboard Paint, Part II

We all know about the circle of gift bags -- you have a birthday or a baby, and suddenly have a stash of six million bags to repackage with gifts for other people's birthdays or babies. And on it goes. Magic. But what about gift tags? Wouldn't it be lovely if you could just erase that "Happy Birthday, Astrid" message, and reuse the gift tag, too?

Well, ladies and gents, here it is, the reusable gift tag:

Chalkboard paint + those cheap paint-it-yourself wooden Christmas ornaments at craft stores = a gift tag that works again and again.

(Just be careful of tricksters with their own sticks of chalk -- a few minutes alone under the Christmas tree, and suddenly all the presents are for Uncle Jesper...)

Adventures with a Can of Chalkboard Paint

Justin and I have recently fallen in love with this fancy kind of apple juice. Yes, yes, the pure-juice, good-for-you thing is nice, but what we really love is the glass bottle. It reminds us of moonshine.

So, once we'd drunk all the juice, I couldn't bring myself to throw the bottle away... and after a good soak, a bit of a scrub, and two coats of chalkboard paint, we've got a funny little jug for all those home-made drinks I always mean to make.

One of our autumn favourites is Lylabeth's cinnamon lemonade -- so simple to make, just add two sticks of cinnamon to store-bought or home-made lemonade, and let it sit for an hour or two.

Cheers to falling leaves, and the put-on-your-slippers chill!