10/24

Pumpkin Chalkboard (Plus a Printable Template!)

Celebrate, Crafts, D.I.Y. Project, Halloween, Home Decor, Renter Friendly
By Mandi Johnson

Make a pumpkin chalkboard for thankful lists or fun to-do listsEvery fall, our family keeps a mental note of all the fun seasonal shenanigans we want to get into before snow falls. This year, I decided we might stand a better chance of crossing off that list if we moved it from our brains onto a cute little pumpkin chalkboard! Made sense to me! Check out how easy it is to whip up this pumpkin chalkboard— perfect for fun to-do lists or for displaying a thankful list.

Make a pumpkin chalkboard for thankful lists or fun to-do lists Materials:
-craft plywood (.25″ plywood and masonite will work too)
-primer
-chalkboard paint
-200-300 grit sandpaper
-pumpkin template

Tools:
-jig saw (with clean-cutting blade)
-scissors
-pen or pencil

pumpkin templateClick the image above to print out the pumpkin template. I included margins, so you don’t need to shrink or re-size the image before printing.

Make a pumpkin chalkboard for thankful lists or fun to-do listsStep One: Cut out the template and trace it onto the plywood.

Step Two: Use a jig saw to cut out the shape of the pumpkin. You can clamp the plywood to a table if you have trouble holding it while cutting, but I ended up being able to just hold it with my left hand and saw it with my right hand. Be careful that your hands are nowhere close to the moving blade!

Make a pumpkin chalkboard for thankful lists or fun to-do listsStep Three: Sand down the edges of the plywood pumpkin shape, and also give the surface of the pumpkin a light sanding. If you have any uneven edges around the pumpkin, use a lower grit sandpaper (like 80 or 120) to smooth them out.

Step Four: Cover the pumpkin cut-out with dark primer. After the primer dries, lightly sand down the surface with a high grit sandpaper. This will knock down those rough little wood hairs that stuck up because of the moisture of the primer. It will make your chalkboard really smooth. You don’t want to skip that step!

Finish with a couple coats of chalkboard paint in the color of your choice.

Make a pumpkin chalkboard for thankful lists or fun to-do listsI glued magnets to the back of my chalkboard so I could hang it on the refrigerator, but you could also use those removable adhesive strips to hang it anywhere you want.

Make a pumpkin chalkboard for thankful lists or fun to-do listsWhat would you put on your list? Our list is actually much longer than the one photographed above, but we’ve almost done everything on it! We’ve yet to cross off that hayride though. I’m glad I’ve got this cute little chalkboard to remind me to fit it into our weekend! –Mandi

Credits // Author and Photography: Mandi Johnson. Photos edited with Stella and Spring from the Signature Collection.

27 Comments

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.