Trying to be a Good Parent - The Crafty Way #2

I thought it was about time I show you another of my 'crafty' parenting tricks.  If you missed #1 then pop by and see my 'well done' wall here.

I don't know about you but I love lists, particularly ones that are useful and I can see at a glance!  I had this unsightly door in my kitchen that I really felt needed a makeover!

I popped to our local DIY shop and bought a tin of blackboard paint (it is cheaper online but I wanted to use it straight away and patience is not one of my strong points!) This one is actually magnetic, don't get too excited though, it only really works for really large light magnets!

I took the door off it's hinges, lay it on the table and got to covering it in gloopy black paint! If your thinking of doing this use a roller, nothing worse that brush strokes!

Once I had done a few coats and it was all dry I rehung the door (it was a very light door thankfully) and got to work with my chalk pen.

Here is the finished door.

The door has evolved over time as we have got used to it.  It started as just a to-do list and shopping list.  I added 4 circles more recently so we could show how we are feeling, it;s a good way for my middle one to explain her emotions.  (she drew daddy's emotion yesterday, he has three noses or rather to be exact two nostrils and a nose!)

We are also doing a parenting course (as I know I mentioned before) and one thing we had to do was devise some house rules.  This actually resulted in many arguments so in the end we settled with the simple 'We take care of people and things'.

The lowest section is a picture frame for the kids to draw in. (it's the most accessible area for them)

I am sure it will be filled with works of chalking genius in no time.

The thing I love most about this board is shopping list.  I know I can't take it with me, I don't have a big enough bag! All I do is take a photo of the shopping part of the door and hey presto I have my list to go without wasting paper!  The shopping list is always kept up to date as we add to it whenever things are out or low.

A word on chalks! I used this chalk pen from Dovecraft to do all the things that I wanted to remain relatively permanent.  It is so smooth to write with and you can easily wipe over to remove normal chalk marks without this being rubbed away!  I have a bowl of normal chalks near the board so we can always add the to board and rub away as needed.

I actually have a few of these pens in stock as my wholesaler requires minimum ordering so if you are interested in one you can buy one here.  The price is reduced down to £2 but I only have 5 left.

I am desperate to for other things to cover in blackboard paint now! 

I am off to share my blog over at Handmade Monday and Creative Mondays, do feel free to pop over and see a few great blogs!

Jenny xxx

November's Crafty What Nots box

November, so nearly Christmas!! Last year my November Crafty What Nots box was very Christmassy but I didn't want to do that this year, especially as I will be designing Christmas eve crafty boxes as well as the normal monthly one!
This months theme was 'Look Who's Chalking!'  I bought these beautiful papers called chalkboard by craftworks, they were so colourful and loved the chalk theme so they inspired the box name this time.

I must admit though that once it came to designing I hit a bit of a wall!  (this does happen, usually monthly as I have to try to create new and unusual tutorials)  Often I get way to excited about the papers and don't always think what I am going to do with them until I am nearing the end of the month (something I am trying to rectify!)

This month there were three tutorials in the end.  The main one I wanted to do was some chalkboard lettering, Chalks can be so messy though so I included a white pen which works amazingly well on black paper.  Here is the finished result

The other two tutorials were for cards this month.  I barely ever do card tutorials!

One is an easel card and the other a more literal take on an easel card!

The free gift this month was a handmade chalkboard heart.

As you can see it was quite a full box again, I even had to stop myself adding more and more things!

Well I am off once more to join in with Handmade Monday and Creative Monday so do pop by and say hi!  Then it's head down to plan the next box!!

Have a lovely week xx