Sally’s Kitchen & Stuff

I used to keep a chalkboard in the kitchen when I lived in a house and the kitchen was bigger. It was very convenient for writing down recipes as I go with dirty hands. It was also good for letting everyone know what we’re having for dinner ahead of time. Not to mention that with an old flea market salvaged painting frame painted gold, it made a great wall decoration.

You can make your own chalkboard. All you need is a sheet of cut tempered masonite, and some chalk board paint. You can get masonite cut to size at a decent sized art supply shop. I got mine from Loomis & Toles, but you can get it pretty much in every art store. It’s quite cheap - a panel of 24" by 30" will set you back a mere $6.

Now that I live in an apartment with my boyfriend, and the kitchen and dinning area is meshed into one, I really don’t want to be eating chalk dust. So I went with the second best - a cork board. They’re quite a bit more expensive since it’s manufactured, but if you’re really in a pinch, here’s a little trick. You can even brush color it to make it look like a corkboard.

You’ll need:
An old frame. Flea markets are full of these. I have 4 in the storage closet.
1 Sheet of styrofoam, cut to the inside size of the frame, with a little extra on each side
1 sheet of muslin
A regular stapler with staples
White Glue

Get some sheets of styrofoam. If you’ve done some online shopping, maybe a large frame, or anything delicate aand flat, then you’d have some sheets lyring around. I got mine from the metal dance pad I ordered from Innex. Directron.com offers free styrofoam if you’re willing to pay for shipping. It can’t be that expensive - it weighs little more than air! You can also get foam board at your local art shop, or check out places such as freecyle.org.

Next thing you’d need is a sheet of muslin big enough to wrap the sheet of styrofoam in the front, and enough give to staple it into the back. Muslin is coarse untreated cotton and can be colored with fabric dye. Have fun. It’s also used as a fitting material - tailors use it to make patterns. It’s cheap at $2/yard, and thumbtacks go right through them.

Assemble your board with staples on the back, and mount it with an old frame with white glue. There! Homemade clothboard. Thumb tacks would go right into it with no resistance, it costs nearly nothing to make, and you can color the fabric to match anything in the kitchen. If you don’t have a frame, just use a binder clip and a nail to hang it on the wall.

Mine is a repository for grocery lists, blank sheets for writing recipes on, and new recipes I have to try out printed on 1/4 letter sized paper. One corner I reserve for a blob of putty. When I want to try out a new recipe, I just putty it to the cupboard above the stove.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 at 10:19 am and is filed under Sally's Kitchen Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.