Chalkboard painted cigar boxes

A friend of mine recently gave my daughter and I a half dozen wooden cigar boxes. My daughter was thrilled, immediately thinking of crafty ideas.

A few days later, she found a box of chalk that I bought and said "What's this for?" and I explained that I was making some chalkboard painted wood magnets. She said "So you have chalkboard paint?" 

So we decided right then that two of the boxes would be painted with chalkboard tops and filled with paper, pens, chalk and other art supplies.

First we deodorized the boxes which still smelled strongly of cigars with a quarter cup of  baking soda in a coffee filter. We just left it in the box with the lid closed for 24 hours. It worked very well.

Then we took different methods to paint it to see which turned out better. Her's turned out best. 

I sanded the top of mine, and put a thin coat of chalkboard paint on the box, let it dry an hour, then another thin coat, then another hour and one more thin coat.

She used a dark shade of card stock and cut out a square to fit on top of the box. Glued it in place with a thin layer of PVA glue, let that dry, then put on 3 thin coats of the chalkboard paint letting them dry an hour between coats. We both used foam brushes to apply the paint.

You can see the difference here. How very smooth hers turned out compared to mine. Even with sanding time, the wood quality is very grainy. It still works, but it's not as smooth. 

After they were done, had 24 hours to cure and we conditioned the chalkboards by covering them with chalk and wiping it off, we folded dividers out of card stock and glued them in.

(She loves everything blue this year)

We are letting them set plain for a bit while we decide how to decorate them, but they are usable right now and she likes the look of the cigar box with the shiny black top. She will put her markers, pencils and chalk in the dividers on the bottom and put in a couple sketch pads. 

I'll put origami paper and chalk in mine, plus a sketch book and a pencil for ideas.

We used FolkArt 2517 8-Ounce Chalkboard Paint, Black for ours, and I like it a lot better than the spray on chalkboard paint that I've used in the past.It's thick and spreads nicely with a foam brush and comes in just a bunch of colors.

Mediterranean Cooking In Alaska

We went to the local Greek Festival last weekend. It's a cultural event as well as being a fund raiser for the local Greek Orthodox Church, Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church.
There was dancing, there was perfect cups of syrupy thick coffee with a gorgeous crema on top. There was feasting.
So many kinds of food, so we all ordered different things so we could try as much as possible. Salads with marinated olives, kabobs served on pita breads with a tangy tzatziki on the side and baklava. Oh I do love the sweet, nutty layers of a real good baklava. Not the kind that all you taste is sweet, but the sort with sweet and spicy and nutty all encased in flaky layers of filo. *moans*
In a uniquely Alaskan moment (remember, Anchorage is an urban community), an announcement was made to be careful. "A pair of black bears has been seen in the area. If you see them when you are walking back to your cars, wait and let them leave the area."
Part of the raising funds is to try and build a new church, and towards that goal, they did what a lot of churches did and printed a cookbook.  Tastes Like Home- Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has lots in common with other church cookbooks. It's filled with just tons of family favorite recipes. Hundreds of recipes separated into appetizers, salads, main courses, desserts, etc. A difference though is that all these recipes are checked. They've all been tested, organized, edited and checked for availability of ingredients by one woman. Laurie Constantino. (link is to her cooking blog, well worth checking out)
It's a cookbook filled with traditional recipes, tips on variations contributed by members of the church, and adaptations to traditional recipes to ingredients that can be found in the US and Canada more easily.
The cookbook has some Alaskan variations, halibut and salmon for example which are so easy to get fresh here. But comparable substitutions can be made. If you have an interest in Mediterranean cooking, this is a great resource.
You can find the cookbook for sale here. I really recommend it.
Oh yeah, and it has the recipe for that baklava.

Composition Notebook Style Pencil Boxes

Print at 100 ppi! These were a lot of fun to make, but I'm afraid that I still haven't gotten more ink to print up a model. I hope you like them.

Click on the images for the full sized versions.

If you have a moment, and a Threadless account, I have a few slogans up to check out.

Some people have issues, I have a subscription

Gerunding the Ungerundable

Books make good mental floss

Wood Necklace Project- super easy and quick

I'm so happy with how this turned out, and they are very easy to make and modify.

You'll need wood shapes, sand paper, paint, a drill, a strand of plastic beads and a couple big jump rings, and Mod Podge

You can also use decoupage, stickers, rhinestones and glitter to decorate.

The shape I picked up was a bat shape. I love Halloween. Really truly. 

First I decided how I wanted it to hang from my strand of beads. Since it's a bat shape and the head is below the wing tips, I drilled holes on the wing tips.

Removed the label, and sanded it smooth on both sides. Then painted one side, then the other with acrylic paint. I used DecoArt Metallic Blue with a bit of a purple mixed in. On the front, I sprinkled glitter on it. 

After that dried, I coated it with a thin coat of Mod Podge and let that dry. Repeat on the other side. I got some Mod Podge in the holes, and just used a scrap of wire to clean the holes back out while it was still wet. 

Then another slightly thicker coat of Mod Podge on the front, and I put the rhinestones on that. The rhinestones have a sticky back, but it didn't seem secure enough. Putting them in the Mod Podge made them a lot more secure. 

After that dried, put the jump rings in the holes and hang it from the strand of beads.

Super easy, super quick. Now I want to get a lot more shapes and make a bunch more of these.

I used my Fiskars craft drill. The craft drill is a nice non-powered option for wood and plastic and I use mine on resin, polymer clay, wood, plastic toys I want to make into beads and other light craft drilling. 

The beads I used were part of my collection of throw beads from Mardi Gras. I have hundreds of strands sent by friends hanging on my bedroom wall. For people who don't have hundreds of strands of Mardi Gras beads, you can get the same sort of beads at party supply places and sometimes at Claire's and other similar accessory stores. If you have lots of Mardi Gras beads you want to get rid of, you can send them to me!

This is another fun project to do with kids. With very young kids, I used to use thick tempera paints with mine. I'd pick 2-3 colors that worked harmoniously together so they wouldn't  turn to mud and I did the sealing. With slightly older kids, decoupage on simple shapes make very fun necklaces that can reflect interests. For tweens, teens and adults, almost any scrapbooking technique for embellishment will work on these sorts of necklaces.