DIY Chalkboard Lettering

When my housemate, Maggie, saw the lettering on our new chalkboard (made using last week's DIY chalkboard paint tutorial), she told me, "I've been wondering how you did that... I thought you might have used magical powers!" I'm sadly still lacking in my wizardry skills, but it is pretty magical that these professional-looking letters can be made with nothing but a piece of paper, some chalk, and a pointy object. You'd never guess how quick and easy it is to make letters that look like you LaserJet-printed them straight onto your chalkboard! Read on to find out how.

What you'll need:

• computer paper
• chalk
• mechanical pencil
• tape (any kind)
• printer (optional)

Step 1: Design and print out your letters to size. 

I wanted to design something all my housemates would benefit from. You may have noticed that I talk about my housemates a lot... That's because I have SEVEN of them! With this many folks, house meetings (with a formal agenda and all) are crucial for keeping the wheels of house organization well-greased. I decided to design some fancy-pants lettering for our monthly meeting agenda, hoping to brighten the dining room, as well as our house meetings.

For the word "agenda," I used a font called Grutch Shaded, and for the date and time, I used Champagnes & Limousines. (both free downloads!) Since our housemate, Scott, just moved to Thailand and took his printer with him, I had to get creative to procure my oversized letters. Instead of printing out them out, I maxed out the brightness on my computer screen, and traced each letter by hand. It's not as painstaking as it sounds: since these letters are only going to be used for tracing later on, they don't need to be printer-perfect... rough estimations will do!

Step 2: Next, rub chalk over the back of your paper. Use your tape to hang the paper on the chalkboard where you'd like to transfer the letters.

Step 3: Trace over each letter with a mechanical pencil (sans lead). This should leave a very faint outline of each letter on the wall. You'll have to put some elbow grease behind it, and you may have to go over the letter twice! I peeked often to make sure each letter was properly transferring to the wall, and rubbed more chalk on the back of the paper as needed.

Step 4: Now that you have a faint outline of each letter, you can fill it in with chalk of any color. I kept the original print-out handy as a reference in case a piece of the letter wasn't perfectly clear.

And easy-peasy lemon-squeezy, you've got yourself some fine-looking letters!

Chalkboard artists (yes, it's a real thing) take chalkboard lettering to the next level... Artists like Dana Tanamachi-Williams and Valerie McKeehan make my lettering look like child's play. Let them inspire you on toward greater projects... or just allow yourself to be wowed by the possibilities of chalkboard lettering!

top left: apartment therapy  |  top middle and right: tanamachi studio

middle left: bliss in images  |  middle right: simply kierste

bottom left: sugar & charm  |  bottom middle: swell & grand  |  bottom right: renegade craft fair