Valentine's Day Chalk Sign

 

I love making chalk signs so much that as a Christmas present, my daughter cut out a dozen pieces of plywood and painted them with chalk paint so I could make a sign for all the different seasons, holidays or months.  Well here is my first sign for 2019!  If you like chalk signs as well then you will be excited to learn that they are not hard to make at all!  In fact, I am going to walk you through the steps to make your very own chalk sign. 

First go to a thrift store and find yourself a nice non-glass framed print. Now buy some chalk paint and paint your picture with chalk paint.  I used black chalk paint from Rustoleum.  You can find this at your local big box store or if you are a Prime lover like me, you can also find it on Amazon. 

Rustoleum Chalk Paint

While you are allowing the chalk paint 24 hours to dry, decide what you want to put on your sign.  I made my Valentine's sign using the font Magnolia Sky.   There are lots of great fonts for chalk signs but Magnolia Sky is definitely one of my favorite.  You can download the font here.  A quick internet search for chalk signs will literally bring up a million results that can give you some great ideas.  I knew I wanted to do a Valentine's sign but I also wanted to incorporate a pretty heart wreath so I needed to make my text small enough so that I would have enough room for my design.  My sign was originally going to say "Be My Valentine" but then (after trial and error) that the wreath wouldn't fit so I decided to go with "Be Mine" instead.

I printed the desired text on my home computer and then cut it out in word blocks.  After you have cut out your word block, take a piece of regular chalk, lay it on it's side and rub it back and forth on the back of your word block.  You want to provide enough chalk on the back side that when you trace the outline of the word, it leaves a chalk outline that you can fill in later.

After you have generously coated the back of your text with chalk, place it on your sign in the desired spot and then trace the outline of it with a pencil.  You will need to go over it several times so that you have a good outline to fill in with chalk maker.  Don't worry about it being perfect because a little Q-tip dabbed in water can clean up a multitude of messes.  

Now fill your text in with chalk paint and once again, go around the letters with a dampened Q-tip to make it extra crisp and neat.  I use the Bistro Chalk Marker and you can find that here

When it came to the wreath, I actually used an oval platter to draw a semi-circle shape and free-handed the little hearts.  They were not perfect which I think adds to the character and charm of the sign.  The great thing about chalk paint is it is very forgiving if you make a mistake.  I little water and  Q-tip and you can fix any little imperfections. 

Well there you have it!  Hopefully I will be sharing a Saint Patrick's Day Sign next month!  In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day and I hope you enjoyed the post!  If you ended up making a chalk sign from this tutorial, I would love for you to share it!

Sláinte