DIY – How to write on a chalkboard like a pro

Passing by a restaurant menu, or by pinterest, looking to a picture like this one, or that one, or also this one, have you ever wondered how it was made? Saying to yourself “Ouaah, it’s awesomely nice but it will never be easy to reproduce!”.

Well actually, it is. Really. No need to be a typographer to create a nice chalkboard lettering. Well, of course, some of chalkboards creations are indeed crazy,  and typographer is still a real profession, but let’s say that it’s possible to create something similar with almost nothing.

I wanted to refresh my bathroom decor for a wile. Since I’ve moved to my new apartment actually. At the beginning, the walls were red. Brick red. ALL the walls. And a red bathroom is not exactly the perfect definition of relaxation and peace, in my opinion.

I like Red, but with moderation. On a section of wall, if the ceilings are high and the room big enough and bright, I’ll agree, but a room entirely painted in red, it becomes frightening.

I think I spent an entire month painting this bathroom (only during the week-ends), covering every wall, coat after coat.

The final result will be the subject of another post. Here I’ll talk only about a single area. My black chalkboard style wall. Because I wanted an area like this one for a long time, I thought that the bathroom would be a nice place as well as in a kitchen.

And of course, I wanted a nice lettering, with a nice font, but the fact is that I’m not a lettering expert, and I was not ready to try a free handy lettering. So I’ve pretended I was, by playing with fonts and my computer, and it’s really easy :

For this DIY you will need:

– A black chalkboard effect painting
– A computer with a vector software  (like Illustrator or Gimp)
– Some A4 pieces of paper
– Some chalks
– A bit of patience

Step 1 – the design :

Assuming that you have painted your wall in black chalkboard color first, and it’s ready, just launch your software and start working on a composition that you like.
For my wall, I used the fonts chalk-hand-lettering-shaded and Lavanderia.

When you’re happy with the result, take you pieces of paper, and in front of your wall, arrange the papers side by side, in order to estimate the number of paper you will need.
When finished, reproduce the pattern with your software, and copy your drawing on it like shown below:

Cut and save sheet by sheet then print the result!

Step 2 – the transfer :
Turn each sheet over, and by transparency, reproduce the drawing thickly with a chalk.

Arrange the sheets of paper on your wall, one by one, than with your chalk (or with a screwdriver handle for instance), reproduce the drawing again by pressing on it. (But not too much)

Remove the paper and tadaaaa! You should see your chalk outlines.
Now just trace the lettering using your chalk that you can soak in a bit of water for a brighter result..

Clean the outlines with a moister rag and you’re done!

Did you like it?
Personally I’m happy with the result. And the advantage of a chalkboard wall, is that you can change the drawing as many time as you want, only limited by your imagination!