A new twist on chalkboard lettering…
Hi everybody!! Some of you may not be as old as me, but I remember when school chalkboards were still black instead of the green that came later. Aw, heck… I remember when schools still had chalkboards!
I also remember being very timid in school, and yet I loved sitting near the front. Only in the 3rd grade did my mom and I figure out the reason: I was extremely near-sighted and simply couldn’t see the board if I was too far away!
One of my trepidations was always the fear that the teacher would call me up to the board to work a math problem or something. I really was a shy child, believe it or not!
And once in a while, I would be ‘chosen’ to help the teacher. Sometimes that would mean cleaning the chalkboard erasers. Anyone remember those? Goodness, they would be so full of chalk dust! Which I recently discovered used to be made up of pure calcium carbonate. Does that element sound familiar?! If you saw my post on homemade chalk paint, it should! For that recipe, see this post.
Anyway, nowadays chalk is made up almost totally of gypsum, presumably because it doesn’t produce as much dust as calcium carbonate. It also doesn’t make as vibrant a mark, in my opinion.
Remember this DIY IKEA hack from awhile back? The one where I took a tray from IKEA and turned it into a chalkboard tray? Well, I wanted to use it for my fall mantel (coming soon!) and I wrote ‘Happy Fall, Y’all’ on it with a piece of chalk. It barely showed up! So I began to research how to make the writing more concentrated somehow. I didn’t want to use a chalk pen or paint pen, or anything that wouldn’t erase – I want to use my tray year round.
Then I remembered that I had a container of pure calcium carbonate on hand. Win! And I found some info online that indicated what I had supposed would work – I could add water to the CC and use a paint brush to write on my board.
I couldn’t wait to begin chalkboard lettering with liquid chalk!
All I did was mix a little water into some calcium carbonate (I mixed it in one of those plastic ramekins like you get food samples in at Sam’s and Costco!). It formed the consistency of school glue (imagine that?). I was working so intently, I forgot to take pictures! Plus it was late at night when I should’ve been sleeping – blogging will do that to you! I digress…
This is the result! Even though it’s imperfect, I am so pleased with it. It’s perfectly imperfect. You can even see where I had originally written using a chalk stick.
Here’s a sneak peek at the mantel… coming up tomorrow!!
I can’t wait for you to try lettering with liquid chalk and a paint brush! Let me know how you like it! You’re welcome to pin this image, if you want to save this idea:
Till tomorrow!
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