DIY: Chalkboard and Chalk Holder

DIY TIME!

So home alone last night as the BF was at work doing his teaching thing. I was terribly bored and so I continued working on a few DIY projects I finally picked things up for last week. First was some spray painting totally unrelated to this DIY post so I'll just leave you worrying about what I'm spray painting.
(insert maniacal laughter here!)

The final product:

The how to wil be much more complicated than you'd think... 

(P.S. Pardon the white space.) 

Saturday I picked up some stick on chalkboard.

HUZZAH! So after flattening it under some RPG books for a few days I was finally able to get this show going. 

Here's what came in the box.(RIGHT) Nothing too special. From here it was deciding where the hell to put this stuff. 

I decided on the front door. It's blank and we could use a note service of some kind here so we don't forget things like hugs and feeding the cats.

It should be noted that Chewie (one of my fantastic cats) feel the desire to help by standing behind me on the couch. 

Adorable little sucker.

Attaching the chalkboard was easy (peel and stick I love you) but I needed a holder for the chalk. Because it's the front door I wanted something pretty flush and aside from being a lazy ass and just tacking the plastic bag to the wall I looked at what I had lying around the apartment. 

So, MacGiver time: I had a sewing kit, hooks, a piece of fabric that was awesome orange. 

What does one do with all these supplies??

MAKE SOMETHING ALMOST ENTIRELY USELESS!!

Now I've never mentioned it before but I'm a terrible sewer. Not having a sewing machine compounds this issue so bare with me as I probably make some of the worst mistakes EVAR. With that in mind I started making a cute little chalk holder with my scraps. 

This was the original plan, un-sewen and during day light. This project took forever because I did it all wrong but still turned out 'useable'. Key was a cone-like shape with tap for attaching to the wall. How it would attach hadn't been devised at this point. so onward with the sewing! 

First I folded my edges and pinned them down for sewing. Not too hard unless you're much better at stabbing yourself than sewing. Which I am. 

My fingers still hurt a little. 

Next I wanted to make a straight edge for the pocket. To do so meant some folding. Once I found where my important edge was. I have it a snip snip. 

SNIP SNIP!

Then it was time to start sewing by knotting on the edge I would be hiding under another flap. Makes for easy crappy-sewing to make it all pretty.

I was using a lovely pink thread (terrible quality) because it blended very well with the orange. After a few stitches things seemed to be going well.  

 Not so much actually.
Stupid crappy dollar store thread snapped, knotted and ripped after half the project was done. So I had to snip it off and start again.

 This very nice quality but bright white thread was the only option after balck. I figure the chalk would be white and the stitching small enough no one would notice. Anyhoo, I stitched all along the edge (poorly as you can see until I met the folder corner. Here I stitched once in the corner, remove all my pins and folded the un-sewn flap over.

 Ta-da! like that. After a pin's put in I was have to sewing, this time connecting the two flaps.

 Like so! Once connected with a tight seam I needed to work on the back.

 Now lazyness and my terrible cutting skills are to blame for this randomly sewn back. I needed to fold it up so it was supportive but also avoid weird edges seen from the front What to dp?

 More Ta-Da-ing! keeping a loose fold along this flap and sweaing it to the back of the holding pocket make it tight, and I tucked in the edged behind the flap. Sew south  and more south until the entire back is solid.

 But I needed to measure my chalk height first before sewing the bottom half. So putting the chalk in it's holder, I then flipped and continued with a general idea of where to sew.

 Pin's make it all better and easier and after some crafty inside of the holder sewing you get....

 THIS! It's not perfect, or what I had set out to do really, but it's nice enough for a piece of chalk. I had thought about it being big enough for two but ultimately that wasn't going to happen. A piece would fall, or break and that's bad news bears. This was for one piece as we're not going to be storing oodles in one spot.
But it needed something else.

 BUTTONS! After finishing my masterpiece of button art I've had a ton of random coloured buttons left over. A fan of green (with green accents all over my dishevelled apartment) I figured it would look cute with the orange and it also broached the subject of how the hell the holder would hang from the wall.
Solution?

 PICTURE FRAME WIRE! Using the wire, I cut it into a strip long enough to create a hanging loop for the button to latch on to. But wire is gross so with some extra orange I started wrapping the fabric around the wire. The key to making it stick? Picture wire is made of tinier wires twisted together . By seperating the end a little I was able to weave pieces of the wire through the fabric to 'snag' the ends on on and keeping my wrap nice and tight.

 Twist the extra wire ends, make a spot for the nail and button and you have an instand, cheaply made decorative hook. Would I pay for this? Hells no, but it's functional and kinda cute.

Putting them together and stepping back shows an adorable little button hook for my chalk! it's not the bucket I wanted but it's nice. 

All in all I think this worked out. A cute message board, grocery list and 'to-do' spot that Zach has already put 'Hugs' on. It's all flush enough to have at the front door and thankfully not low enough for the cats to toy with. 

I felt productive last night.