From Christmas Serving Tray To Chalkboard

First you start off with an ugly Christmas paper lined wooden tray...this is not the actual size I used, but it is a smaller one...Please note I do all my painting on top of my black trash cans. That saves me having to worry about getting paint somewhere it doesn't belong (plus it adds a lot of class to my blog!)Now I paint it all off white to cover the forest green it was before. I thought I would want to leave it this off white creamy color until I realized that is precisely the color of my walls, so....I decided to use a nice light chocolate color. That would be milk chocolate, not dark.
After I painted the outside with the nice brown paint, I used this chalkboard paint that I got on Clearance at Michael's for $1. I gave it two coats with the good old brush. I found it was difficult to get smooth coats on, but that might have just been me.

I could hardly wait to write on it, so I didn't wait! Here I have taped off the black area to smooth up the brown painting line.

OK, so here is the finished product....except it didn't turn out like I had hoped...it needed some more zing!
So even though it distresses me to say so, I distressed it very mildly....and then I put a cream colored satin cording around the chalkboard part (partly to cover up the uneven paint lines!).

Here is a detail of the cording and the distressing. Something just doesn't seem right about sanding the finished product after I carefully painted it.

And, a drum roll please, here is the finished product! It fits perfectly in this place on my stairs and I love it!!!

I am posting this over at Kimba's at A Soft Place to Land...go there to see all sorts of inspiring DIY projects! (http://asoftplace.net/2009/11/diy-day-and-a-giveaway-11/)