Halloween Chalkboard

While browsing my local Jo-Ann Fabric, I came across a cheap wood-framed slate, and I decided to turn it into a cute little Halloween chalkboard.

You Will Need:

Framed slate (about $3 at Jo-Ann Fabric)
Masking tape
Orange acrylic paint
Paint brush
Rubber stamps
Ink pad
Other decorations (I used buttons and some cut-out bats from some Halloween scrapbooking paper)
Glue

Start by blocking off the inside edge of the slate's frame with masking tape, to prevent the paint from running onto the slate.  If you have a very steady hand, maybe you don't need to worry about this, but I'm a sloppy painter, so it helped me.  The good news for us slobs, though, is that if you make a mess, the acrylic paint can easily be cleaned up with a little soapy water.

Paint your frame.  It took several coats before I'd achieved a nice, opaque orange.

Once the paint is dry, remove the tape and block out the words you'd like to stamp onto your frame.  In the interest of keeping things simple, I went for "Happy Halloween," but obviously you can do anything you like.  Be sure to map out the placement of the letters so that you have enough space.  That said, I mapped mine out and still wound up with some crooked, off-kilter words, so to each according to her abilities, I guess.

At this point, you may want to spend some time playing around with the placement of your decorative bits and bobs at this point.  I wound up using two paper bats from a $1 package of Target scrapbooking paper and and three buttons of various sizes.

Once you're happy with the arrangement, glue on decorations.  Let them dry.

Grab some chalk and write a message!

I think this chalkboard would be great to put beside a bowl of candy if you won't be around to hand treats out on Halloween night.  I've been using mine to fill my hankering for a Halloween advent calendar, with a chalked-in countdown -- although I keep forgetting to change the numbers!