{31 Days to a Brand New Room}Day 14: Chalk Word Art

If you're joining us for the first time today, this is day 14 of a 31 day series about how to give a room in your home a brand new look, from top to bottom, completely DIY.  

You'll find links to all the other posts in the series here, if you're interested.

It's no secret around here that I love chalk art.  I'm always trying new things on the chalkboard wall in my kitchen.  I decided to give Sis a funny, inspirational piece of chalk art to keep her headed in the right direction as she leaves her room every day.

I started by designing my word art using Gimp.  You could use Photoshop, Word or Publisher -- whatever you are comfortable using.  Or you could draw it with a pencil and paper and be all cool, like "I don't need a computer to make sweet word art, yo".  I don't have that much swag.  From that point, I usually take my design and free-hand it on the wall, but for this one I decided to try and use my projector.  I don't know if that's necessarily my favorite way to do it, but if you feel unsure about your ability or have a really intricate design you want to use, it's a great option.  I projected the image onto the wall, lined it up just right and traced the outlines of all the letters with a piece of chalk. 

Then I went back with a level and straightened up the lines.  Following my original design, I also went back in and cleaned up the shapes of the lettering. Once I was happy with all of that, I filled in the solid letters and added details. 

To get a nice even finish on those big solid letters, I filled them in roughly with chalk then used my finger tip to smudge and spread it out. 

 You can see it's not perfect, but I'm happy enough to leave it just as it is.  Unless you're Dana Tanamachi, chalk art is supposed to be a little bit unrefined, right?  I didn't feel like I needed to do anything special to set this design since it's up high enough that no one will touch it, but you could spray it with hairspray like we did on the headboard just to be sure.

Now every morning as she puts the finishing touches on her outfit she'll be reminded {in a kind of silly way} to be proud of herself and not settle for less than she deserves.  The high heels are optional, really.

Join me tomorrow to find out all about that chicken wire memo board/jewelry organizer I made!