Thrifty Thursday Chalkboards!

This chalkboard was created out of a need for somewhere to start our five year old son tracking and fulfilling his responsibilities around the house. He's been wanting to earn some money for random toys that he would like to purchase - I'm proud of him that he's asking to work for them and not just for us to buy them. So - we've jumped on it and started a "Chores" list. Since it will be constantly changing and evolving a chalkboard will be a good way to jot down chores and let him work on reading and writing skills with us as we check off chores, etc.

Here is my $1.79 tray from the Salvation Army store.

I used chalkboard spray paint and then hand painted a border to match the area where we are hanging it. I will admit... this isn't my greatest masterpiece ever. But, I won't openly critique it. ;) It serves its purpose and it does look cute hanging by our ladder frame. However, I have to devise a new mounting technique. It fell down mid-picture taking!

I also picked up these little plastic plates while I was shopping for my big chalkboard. I think they were $.99 a piece. I made a custom chalkboard for each child to hang on there door knob to their bedroom. This is actually an example of a cute idea... that in practice didn't turn out great. My son's is fine, cute, works, etc. See:

My daughter's (3 years old in 2 days) lasted about 3.5 minutes until she drew ALL over the plate including the WHITE ribbon that I trimmed it with. Duh. Why would I use white ribbon?! Then she SLAMMED her door knocking the chalkboard to the floor and breaking the hanging ribbon in the process. A re-do is in order... grrr. But, live and learn. ;)

Head to Tales from Bloggeritaville for some more great thrift finds!

Linking up to a Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinvented also!