DIY Chalkboard Banner Craft Tutorial

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I hope your weeks are starting out great (is it possible for work week Mondays and Tuesdays to be really, truly great??). We had a super busy weekend that culminated in Father’s Day on Sunday. We watched the Masters and the World Cup with my father-in-law, visited my own dad in the hospital (loooong story) and then went and had dinner with hubby’s parents and grandparents. Did you guys do anything fun?

A couple of weeks ago I put up a post about my new travel themed gallery wall and it got a lot of love! Thanks so much, you guys! A project I made to put the finishing touch on my wall was a chalkboard banner that reads “travel.” It’s a super easy project, but I wanted to give you guys a quick tutorial on how to make one and where to get the materials in case you wanted to make one yourself! Let’s get started 🙂

Chalkboard Banner Materials

– Wooden banner pieces (mine were about $0.59 each at Michael’s) – Make sure you get as many as the phrase you are doing requires!

– Chalkboard spray paint

– Newspaper (to spray paint on)

– Twine

– Chalk

– Chalk paint pen (also found at Michael’s)

Step 1

Lay out your banner pieces on a piece of newspaper (I should’ve used a bigger piece since I still ended up painting the grass… oops.) and give them several light coats of the chalkboard spray paint. I ended up doing about 3 coats.

Step 2

Once the banner pieces are fully dry, take your twine and thread it through all the holes. The way I threaded it hid the extra twine behind the banner, but you could reverse it and have the twine going over the top of the chalkboard, too, if that’s the look you want. Once they are all on the twine, slide them around until they are all equidistant from each other. It should look something like this:

Step 3

Tie a knot at each end of the banner so the pieces don’t slide off! All of the banner pieces should stay pretty firmly put since the twine is thick, but knots are always a good precaution, just in case 😉

Step 4

Take you piece of regular white chalk and rub it on it’s side across each banner piece.

Step 4

Take your finger and rub in the chalk dust so you have a nice, chalky, even surface to work with. Keep a paper towel (or in my case, my jeans) handy to wipe your hands off on!

Step 5

Take your chalk pen and follow the instructions on the box. Mine told me to shake vigorously for a few minutes and then press the tip up and down on a piece of scratch paper to get the chalk ink flowing. Then carefully draw in your letters on each banner piece! I went over each of my letters two times to make them really bold. Don’t worry if you mess up, a lightly damp cloth will clean it up and give you a fresh start!

And here’s what your chalkboard banner will look like when you’re finished!

I love how it turned out! Super simple, but super cute. I put it up as a starring feature in my travel themed gallery wall! I think it completes the wall quite nicely, don’t you? 🙂

What word would you feature on your own chalkboard banner and where would you put it?