Stephanie Newton Books

Okay, so the project didn’t turn out exactly like I envisioned, but it’s close. I drool over a certain home furnishings catalog in which the items are priced way out of my budget. So the challenge was to create something that had a similar look but wasn’t so pricey.

There are four pieces that are magnetic and the two that are black are chalkboard. I have no idea if they will last…and the perfectionist in me would really like to try again now that I know how to do it. But here’s what I learned:

*Chalkboard paint doesn’t work on canvas. If I had read the instructions I would’ve known that (it says any non-porous substrate). I ended up going to the craft store and buying a really, really thin piece of wood and painting it for the chalkboard and gluing it to the canvas so it would look like the other pieces.

*Magnetic spray paint doesn’t work. After spray painting four or five coats, the magnets slid right off. I ended up spending way more money for the real stuff in a paint can at the hardware store (which works great!) and should have started there.

*Mod Podge is great but it’s hard to get a whole 12 x 12 sheet of paper to not have bubbles. I’m not sure how I’d get the bubbles out, but I’d like to try again.

* I couldn’t find cute magnets when I started looking for them so glued the diamond looking things onto plain magnets. That was probably the easiest part of the project and they’re so girly and cute.

So there you have it…bubbles and wrinkles and all. I’m done with decorating for a while…until my son goes to camp. He’s already waiting to see what I come up with for HIS room while he’s gone. (What have I done?)