DIY Chalkboard Art Canvas

We have a revolving art gallery in our house and like to move different pieces around to suit the mood. So this DIY Chalkboard Canvas fits right in. I use it in the guest room and write greetings to our guests, or I'll  draw seasonal flowers or write quotes that inspire me. And best of all this project is easy peasy!

All you need is:
Art canvas in any size (I bought mine for $7AUD at a local art store)
Spray Chalkboard Paint ($13AUD at local hardware store). Get the non-toxic kind
newspaper
painting mask
well ventilated area

How-to
Lay down newspaper in a well ventilated area and put your canvas on it. Put on your painting mask, even if the paint is non-toxic it's good to keep that stuff out of your lungs. Spray an even and thin coat of chalkboard paint on the canvas, no drips! Let it dry and apply another thin even coat of chalkboard paint. Let it dry and just for fun apply another thin even coat of chalkboard paint. Leave it overnight to set and dry and you're ready with your Chalkboard canvas. Have fun!

all photos by me, Sonja Barrett

Typography and the bargain bin

I hope you had a good weekend. Our's was busy, we had friends over for dinner on Friday and then we went over to some friends for dinner on Saturday. We looked at a couple houses that we are interested in buying and we ran a lot of errands. Hubby and I had a good time going to the farmers market and buying overpriced bananas and having a couple of good laughs in the car.

When I was in America in July this year I picked up these wooden stamps from Target in their bargain bin. They are so simple and pretty and they can be used for so many lovely projects.

Custom toy bag for Eli

My friend's cute little baby Eli has some gorgeous wooden blocks that he likes to play with and his mom asked me to make a little bag to put his blocks in. Here's what I came up with -
non-bleached cotton/linen fabric with red stitching.

Latest Market

Magnus and Mathilda is a collaboration between myself and my good friend Louise - some lovely things for kids and for the kids at heart. Check out our etsy shop here. I sell my cushions through Magnus and Mathilda too, but I have a separate etsy shop here.

Louise and I had fun at our 2nd market last weekend in Yarra Glen. We met some lovely folks and people were very excited to see us there. We are going to try and do some more markets closer into the city next year. Here are some photos of our stall at the Yarra Valley Food, Wine, and Craft market.

Nice buttons!

As you probably already know I love to recycle and reuse different items and make them into re-visioned works of art. So I made some little ornaments for the tree in the guest room from recycled cardstock and Juniper wood buttons I bought in Estonia. The cardstock came from a "fat quarters" of fabric that I bought and I've been saving them up for something useful.

I made a heart template and traced a heart onto each of the pieces of cardstock I had

I sewed a straight stitch around the perimeter of the heart with red thread

And hand-sewed the buttons to the cardstock heart. I sewed the buttons instead of gluing them on because after Christmas is over I want to reuse the buttons for something else. I can simply cut the thread and the buttons will come off easily

Then punched a hole with a hole-punch and thread a piece of yarn through the hole

Voila! Recycled loveliness

Disaster zone

I've been working like crazy getting ready for the market this weekend and getting ready for Christmas that I had neglected the cleanliness of my workspace. I really can't stand a messy space for long.

So in an hour it went from this...

to this...

and Yes those are nicely wrapped Christmas presents - just waiting for some

cute gift tags from our Magnus and Mathilda shop.

On the wall I hung the apron that I use when we're at the markets (I made it from IKEA fabric) . It's on the cutest hook from Zakkaya in Melbourne and also features a

toadstool ornament from my etsy shop.

Here's a fresh to-do list of things that I need to get done before the weekend. To fasten the list together I used a bird clip from Lark.