Dry Erase Chalkboard Calendar… Fun, Funky, Functional and FABULOUS!

I know many of you are new (ish) to our blog, and it’s easy for me to forget and assume that you remember every post and every project since the beginning of time Sawdust and Embryos. So in the interest of getting you up so speed on our kitchen calendar situation… let’s start from the beginning!

The walls in our kitchen have no texture, so we thought it would be so fun to make a calendar out of dry erase paint several years ago. In theory, it was a great idea…

But in reality… it was an epic design FAIL.

After about 6 months, it began  retracting and pulling away from our wall, along with the plaster behind it. It completely ruined our wall.

We toyed around with lots of different ideas for how to remedy the situation, yet still have a fun/funky/functional calendar.

That’s when I remembered that I’ve been wanting to do something with this frame from last years auction finds.

We took out the gaudy fruity print, checked to make sure it wasn’t worth any money, and pitched it! Then I did a little glazing with WHITE! (my fave!) I painted the gold detail solid white, but didn’t take any pics of that process.

The plan is to use the glass as a dry erase board, but I like having the option of putting some pretty fabric behind it, or a fun print wrapping paper… you get the idea.

But Nick had the genius idea of painting the backboard using leftover chalkboard. (Because chalkboard art is SO COOL. Watch this sweet video) I like having options. And LOVE having the option of changing things out every month!

For the month of March, I decided to utilize the chalkboard! And after doing a lot of font research, I decided on this design. Me-likey the combination of different types of font!

In case you’re feeling curious… the fonts are as follows: MARCH: Lobster, OF: Bergamot Ornaments (letter x), 2013: Peake.

I printed this onto transparency and projected it onto my chalkboard, and lightly traced it on with chalk! (Here are some other projects we’ve used our overhead projector for!)

Then I got to have some serious fun.

All I used was chalk, a wet rag, and some q-tips!

There’s no tutorial for this part… just trial and error. And if you’re like me… it’s FUN trial and error!

We decided to make the calendar ‘grid’ out of our quarter inch tape (that we use on our backsplashes), and shade in the squares so the days of the month are white.

Oh man. I LOVE it.

So then we popped it into the frame, along with the glass, and hung her on the wall… PERFECTLY covering our disgusting/damaged wall (which Nick claims he wants to eventually repair). The pictures of it installed in the frame aren’t as impressive because of the glare… but I assure you it looks AWESOME in person.

I wrote on the days of the month in black dry erase, and then added our activities using a color coding system and NEON dry erase markers… funnnnnnn!

It makes me feel jubilant every time I walk by it. Anybody want to get together for coffee so I can add it to me ‘schedule’?