Student Style and Function

Happy Monday friends! I hope you all enjoyed the weekend and that all of my readers who were affected by Irene are safe and sound. 


As I promised, I have a new project to share with you this morning. The other week I got an email from the Home Depot Team, asking if I would be interested in working on a creative project with them. Of course I would! What was even better was they were looking for me to work on a project that would add style and function to a student's space. Perfect, since I'll be back at my night classes on September 14th and we've been working on sprucing up my laundry room / office space in the basement recently.


I immediately started to brainstorm some ideas and thought that a chalkboard calendar over my desk would be a great way to keep track of my assignments and projects and manage my time better. After measuring the wall over my desk and determining that a 2' x 3' calendar would be the right size, I headed to Home Depot with my $50 gift card to buy the supplies - here's the breakdown...


Chalkboard Paint - $21.49 + tax
Frog Tape - $7.99 + tax
1/4" Underlayment - $9.99 + tax


For a total of $44 (and change... our receipt went for a walk) - under budget!

Once home, it was time to decide how to handle taping off my calendar. I'd go into all of the math, but I don't really know how I could share my measurements without it sounding confusing. But, the basic idea was that I allowed for space to write the days of the week, have five rows of seven days and then a space for the month and a space for notes. Since the tape was an inch wide, I needed to lay it out on my cutting mat and use a straight edge ruler and my xacto knife to cut it down into more narrow strips that would work with all of my math...

Rather than going the traditional route with the Month at the top, I ran the month along one side of the calendar, while leaving the opposite side open for writing important notes and reminders for myself. My final taped off board looked like this...

The next step, was to prime everything. So, out came the basic latex primer and on it went using a mini foam roller that we already had at home...

It sat like this in our kitchen for two days (some things came up around here) and on Sunday morning B was kind of enough to get the first coat of paint on with a brush.

We then had to wait the recommended 4 hours to get the second coat on the board. At the time I had some girlfriends over visiting with me and Halle, so B was kind enough to finish paining it for me... and peeling the tape off once it was all dry. I was thrilled to later see the finished project...

I know... it's not in my office and there is nothing written on it yet. The next step is to let the chalkboard paint cure for 3 days before we can write on it. That actually works quite well as it means I'll be able to start using it for the beginning of September!

I'm so happy with this project and the materials were definitely within a student's budget! Even if you didn't have $44 to spend on it, it would be easy to buy regular painter's tape for less (I decided to use Frog Tape in order to get cleaner lines). I'll be back on Thursday with the final board in my office all filled out and ready to run! 

Thanks again to the Home Depot for asking me to work with them - I had a lot of fun working on this project and I know it will be extremely useful to me when I'm back in my classes! 

Have you completed any back to school projects, or do you have any that you're finishing up now - either for you or your little one's? I'd love to hear how you stay organized when back to school season hits!