Count Your Blessings Chalkboards

At last I can share the gifts I made for The Littlest Apple’s preschool teachers!  I handed out the gifts today (and note to myself in the future: do this a few days earlier, if at all possible!!)

My regular blog readers already know about my Gratitude Journal (I keep a paper version and the digital one you see in my right sidebar).  It’s a great way to end the day, reflecting each evening on the little (and big) parts of my day that I’m thankful for.  So I decided to come up with a way to share this idea with The Littlest Apple’s teachers.

I was itchin’ to use my chalkboard spray paint again and I’ve been wanting to try out some of the vinyl letters I keep seeing everywhere, so an idea was born!!  Count Your Blessings Chalkboards!!

This project wouldn’t have happened without the help of Shelley from Wonderfully Wordy and House of Smiths.  I custom ordered the vinyl “Count Your Blessings” from her shop, and she managed to get them to me just in the nick of time even though she was already swamped with Christmas orders!  Thanks again Shelley!

I fully intended to go thrifting for cool frames to use, then spray paint them red or turquoise, but I ran across some frames at Target for a price I couldn’t pass up.  (The total cost for this whole project was less than $10 per board.  Not bad!)

I removed the glass from the picture frames and sprayed the glass with 2 coats of chalkboard spray paint.  Once that dried, I put the frames back together, and applied the vinyl decals.  This was my first time using vinyl and Shelley’s instructions were super easy to follow.  I had visions of this part going horribly wrong, but I got all 6 of them on straight with no problems!

At this point, I seasoned the chalkboard by rubbing a piece of chalk over the board, then erasing it.  (If I could do it again, I’d season the ENTIRE chalkboard before putting the vinyl on….lessons for next time!) I’m guessing you could probably rub chalk over the vinyl very carefully, but I didn’t want to risk it.

Then I added a few things to be thankful for on each board, including each teacher’s name.  I wasn’t feeling particularly creative at this point, so I just wrote the same things on each board.  I used chalk for easy erasing, but chalk ink would work well too.  My hope is that the teachers will use these at home as a Gratitude Journal of sorts.

What did you give your child’s teachers this year for the holidays?  Teachers, what kinds of gifts do you like receiving?

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