Distressed Menu Board

I wanted to share with all of you a fun project that I did to create my very own menu board! Even though I now have a menu board posted in my home, I still use my menu planning sheet to do all of my meal planning and shopping. I highly recommend using a planning sheet, it really helps you stay organized.

I have finally reposted a new Menu Planning Sheet for all of you... So, go check it out! You can find it here. I promise it looks way better than the last one. I couldn't figure out how to get Scribd to read my Mac document, love my Mac but sometimes I just understand PC better, I'm sure with time I will get better at it :) Menu Planning can be pretty rough sometimes so read up on my Menu Planning tab for tips and details on how to plan out a menu and how to make shopping and Meal Planning easier :)

So on to the exciting part... Remember this awesome shelf that my brother made? Well, he also made me this really beautiful calendar board to go with a calendar I had made for a gift, but I had made my calendar WAY too big, so it wasn't going to work. BUT... I had been looking for a menu board for quite some time and once I saw this I knew it was perfect for my menu board! Even though I couldn't use it for it's actual purpose I was able to come up with a new way to use it. With just a few alterations I could finally have the menu board that I had always wanted! And, I think it turned out SUPER CUTE! What do you think?

I absolutely LoVe it!

Here's a few close-up shots of the distressing...

Isn't the crown molding he used beautiful?!?

So here is what I did:

I simply used a chalkboard paint like this one to paint the center... A can like this runs about $5. So, it is pretty reasonable, and I even had some left over YAY!

Then I taped-off the framing where I didn't want chalk board paint and painted according to the directions on the can. Definitely needs multiple coats, and let dry between coats!!!! Once dry, I taped off the chalkboard portion of the board. And began painting the accent color on the framing. The calendar board was originally black and since I knew that I would be painting the inside of the board black with the chalkboard paint I decided to paint the framing white so that it would stand-out against the black. Then I sanded and scraped off the white paint, so that it would have a distressed look. I recommend using a polyurethane or a clear coat over the top. Once everything was dry I used this really cool chalk marker, made by Uchida to draw up designs for the grapes and the days of the week. (You can get these at pretty much any craft store in pretty much any color you want) I got the idea for the grapes off of the marker itself! Pretty cool huh?!?

This is how it turned out and I absolutely LOVE it!

One of the funnest projects I have ever done!

Linking up to:

http://sewmuchado.blogspot.com/

http://www.thethriftyhome.com/

http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/