How to do a decorative chalkboard

in 5 easy steps

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Let’s see how you can create your own decorative chalkboard.

For the base element you can use any surface that can be painted: wood, extruded polystyrene, glass and ceramics, metal or plastic.

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We reused a rest of an extruded polystyrene board, remaining after applying a thermal insulation.

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In order to achieve a surface with the same texture as a chalkboard, you need acrylic paint and a surprise ingredient: non-sanded grout!

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Specifying that you must purchase non-sanded grout for small joints, preferably white. We used gray and the effect was a darker final surface. This is not something disturbing, considering that we will write on it with white or light colored chalk.

As we wanted to create something more original than a blackboard, we preferred to use acrylic paint Oskar AquaMatt Turquoise Couture. We choose this color because it is dark enough to allow writing with chalk and it can accomplish the ultimate role, of an interior design decoration.

We combined about 200g acrylic paint with 2 tablespoons of non-sanded grout and we mixed very well to obtain a homogenous composition. This way, we obtained a slightly more viscous paint, which could be easily applied.

5

We applied a layer over the entire surface of extruded polystyrene board, then left to dry 8 hours.

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The paint was already dry after 2 hours, but we preferred to wait 8 hours because we were going to apply a cracking medium on the edges of the board.

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To create a frame of another color, we started by applying a frame work consisting of adhesive paper tape.

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After applying the gel, we let it dry for 2 hours. The following action was applying white acrylic paint over the cracking gel.

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Tip&Tricks:

You will need to apply a thick layer of paint with a single motion, without return the brush over the initial layer. This is because the effect of cracking occurs almost instantly when applying the paint and brush return will damage both the effect and the paint layer.

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After 10 minutes since applying the white paint, we carefully and slowly removed the paper tape.

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The final result was as expected: a turquoise decorative chalkboard, with Vintage accents.

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But the 200 grams of paint were more than enough, so we used the remaining quantity on other items which required decoration (including a Nutella jar).

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Although sometimes it takes more than just a kind reminder to keep us in good shape (“Minimum 5 pushups/day”)…

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If you want the board to look like a classic picture frame, you can give up the cracking gel and apply a border edge made of polystyrene wall moulding. Or other variations on the same theme… Design in your own way! Choose a board, Choose your color, And … enjoy your work!

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