chalkboard christmas cone

For a while I felt chalkboard crafts have grown tired, but I just couldn’t resist another!  It’s been a while since my last (the 3-D chalkboard cake I made for Craft was back in July).  What I also couldn’t resist (the carrot Easter basket I made for Canadian Living‘s The Craft Blog glares at me daily as it hangs by the doorway to my craft room) is another project using a dollar store safety cone…

So here it is, a chalkboard Christmas tree born out of a love affair between chalkboard spray paint and an orange safety cone.  And a couple of sprays of primer (you don’t want to skip priming!).

This project has actually been sitting on newspapers on the floor for the past week, dried and unattended for days.  I was so wrapped up in researching (nightly; obsessively) my own Christmas present to myself, erm, to Paper, Plate, and Plane (i.e. a new camera!), that I forgot all about it.  Then this morning, amidst packing my lunch for work and packing my clothes for an upcoming weekend in NYC with O.T., I remembered it was incomplete.  I hastily scribbled some designs before leaving for work.  As much as I would’ve wanted to spend time on them, I couldn’t.  But if and when you make one for yourself or your kids or grandkids, I wish you many hours of doodling merriment!

chalkboard clock

A chalkboard clock is a wonderful homemade holiday gift idea that costs no more than $10 to make.  I’ve had clock-making on my holiday crafting to-do list, but didn’t realize how timely this craft would have been had it been posted over the weekend when we moved our clocks back an hour.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought of that at all.  In fact, my crafting plans, at best, were indicated on my list as “make a clock” any day before Christmas.  It just so happened that I took one of my near-daily trips to Dollarama this afternoon and came across rolls of adhesive blackboard and thought it would make quite a practical face for my clock project.  What’s most practical is it took only several moves of the minute hand to complete.

All you’ll need are:

a. Adhesive blackboard, which I got for $1 at Dollarama.  If there’s no Dollarama near you, there might be other dollar stores that carry this product.  Or you can buy the blackboard paint available at craft stores.

b. Clock mechanism, which I got at Michaels for $6 (using my 50% off coupon).

c. Foam board, cut into 12″ square and cut with a hole in the center for the clock mechanism to attach.

d. Colored chalk.

All you need to do is to adhere the adhesive blackboard on the foam board, attach the clock, and doodle away.  And of course, change your design at any time!