$2 wall art!

I bought this $2 chalk board at Joann's because it was so cheap and I knew I could do something with it.

I had recently seen a tutorial for an uphostered picture frame that was really cute so I knew I wanted to do something like that. However, there were two problems
1. The chalk board part couldn't come out of it's frame, and
2. I didn't want to buy a bunch of batting for it.

so I got creative! Instead of batting I used, brace yourself, paper towels! I know it sounds so ghetto, but it actually turned out really good! And no one has to know that's what's inside (except for the fact that I just announced it to all of you of course, lol).

So here's what I did:

I measured the edges to see how long my fabric strips needed to be. I wanted the strips on the short side of the board to go all the way across, covering the top/bottom parts of the other fabric strips so the ones on the long side of the board could be a bit shorter while I left some extra space on the other edges. See how I measured those sides below to make sure I could cover the edges.

Then I took some fabric scraps that I had lying around and cut them to size. I glued the fabric srips to the back of the board first and let it dry.

Then I glued the sides and let that dry. Then I folded up a paper towel, cut to size, covered the inside of the fabric in mod podge, shoved the paper towel in there, and pulled the fabric over to cover it.

Once I got it to lay down smooth I moved the paper towel around a little bit until I got it just how I wanted it. Then I used more mod podge to make it extra secure.

And then I had this:

From here I thought of tons of things I could have done with it. I thought about leaving it as a chalk board for a grocery list, or a to-do list. I thought about hanging it on the inside of our bedroom door so me and my hubby could leave sweet notes for each other. BUT I decided my fabric didn't go well with the grey board so I decided to cover it with scrapbooking paper to make this:

And once again I thought of lots of things to do with it. I thought about putting pictures on there, or just one big picture. I thought about making a big vinyl cut out design for it or putting a saying on there. Then I thought it would be nice to put "Please remove your shoes" because I have a little one who will be crawling around soon. But I thought it might be kind of boring if it just said that so I decided to put a picture of my son's little feet on there first. So I mod podged the picture onto the board, covered the entire thing in mod podge to finish it off, and attached a ribbon to hang the board.  I used some of that puffy white doouble sided sticky stuff. Again, kind of ghetto, I know, but it's strong, cheap easy, and you can't even tell, see:

My last step was to put on my vinyl lettering. And remember, I sell vinyl lettering in my etsy shop so if you need some for a project contact me and we can work out a price that works for you! Anyways, here is my final project. I hung it by our front door.

Looking back I would change two things:
1) I would have use a lighter and less busy fabric and
2) I would have used black vinyl lettering. But I still think it's cute, and it's easier to read in person. And everything I used I had on hand so I really did only spend $2!

So head on over to Joann's, pick up your own $2 chalk board and make it your own!!!