Thursday, August 27, 2009

make a quick chalkboard eraser

Awhile back, I whipped up a super fast chalkboard eraser out of a cotton batting scrap. With all of the chalkboard paint happening at the barn this week, I knew my mom needed one, too. I promise to give you a peek in the kitchen in the next couple of days.

In the mean time, I wanted to pass on some great tips from all of your wonderful comments on the bed board post. I always love your enthusiasm , and am so grateful whenever you share good ideas!
  • dust-free chalk
  • chalk pens (I haven't used these before, but they sound interesting)
  • black acrylic paint may perform in a similar way to chalkboard paint
  • starting with a layer of magnetic paint, before the chalkboard paint, adds another dimension to the play
Here's a way to make something useful in only three minutes. Really!

Chalkboard Eraser
Materials:
5x10 inch piece of cotton batting (wool felt would probably work, too)
pinking shears
thread
sewing machine

Make:
  1. Fold batting in half to form a square. Fold in half again.
  2. Stitch all around the rectangle about 1/4 inch from the edge.
    3. Stitch parallel lines through the middle of the rectangle. Wonkiness is fine. It's an eraser, after all!
  3. Clip the edges with pinking shears.
  4. Erase every blackboard in sight.
If you're planning on making a "bed board" for a gift, don't forget to include one of these handmade erasers! Pin It

14 comments:

  1. What an adorable idea! Always so clever, you are. :)

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  2. I can't wait to see the changes in the kitchen.
    I love your eraser and can immediately see other uses for it like dusting and polishing wooden furniture and smaller ones could be used instead of those small round cotton makeup removers ( not that I wear any makeup but my some of my daughter's do.

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  3. Great! Thanks so much for including my tip too ;) I see some of these in our future for sure.

    I, too, can not wait to see the kitchen! So exciting.

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  4. I've been wanting to paint my pantry door with chalk board paint. I'll have to remember this when I finally do.

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  5. Love this idea for the chalk board. I am sure my kids will too!

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  6. if you didn't read the words to this post you might think you were making homemade sanitary napkins - :P!
    you are a clever, clever girl!

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  7. I love your chalkboard idea! We recently did a similar thing with a floor mat and coloured tape (http://imperfectfamily.blogspot.com/2009/02/1-road-mat.html). It started off as a road mat but has since been used as a farm yard, a city and a barn.
    Thanks for all the great inspiration as usual.

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  8. that is so cool I just two days ago made almost identical chaulk erasers for my kids. Also about the magnetic paint I am doing a project with that now and I am not really all that happy with the result, I am using the rustoleum brand it says to do three coats but I am on my 6th or 7th coat and it isn't really that magnetic.

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  9. That is so cute! I'm going to make one this weekend. I've had my chalkboard for three years now and I'm still using cloth napkins. Thanks so much for the great idea, I'll be linking.

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  10. That's great!!! I have the chalk markers....used to run a cafe and they make regular chalk look terrible. BUT at $13 dollars or so for a pack of 4, it's not something I let the kiddos mess with...just for MY chalkboards! (keeps them from smudging with little fingers everywhere!)

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  11. I made makeup remover pads that look exactly like that. They were made of velour. The other day I was thinking I should take the old, very slightly stained ones to school to use as dry erase board erasers. Thanks for the reminder! I need these!

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  12. I knew someone would have already come up with this! And I didn't know about anti-dust chalk. Will have to get that too. Thanks for sharing.

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  13. Thank you! My toddler received a chalkboard/whiteboard easel for Christmas and this was a great quick tutorial that helped me make him an eraser. We happened to have some dust free chalk a friend had given us - although, it's not entirely dust free.

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  14. I love it! I am making a stamping room and bought a chalkboard for my wall, and for the life of me I can't find an eraser except foam (yuck..). Thank you for the inspiration and directions.

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