Wedding DIY: Chalkboard Seating Sign

It’s hard to believe that Sam and I have been married for over a year. I told Sam I couldn’t believe how past the time has flown by, and he said it feels like it’s been forever. I guess I’m just that much fun to live with…

On our actual anniversary, we celebrated with a hike:

Well Sam wasn’t actually physically present since I was on the mother-daughter hiking trip I posted about Monday, but he was with us in spirit. And in a strange printed photo that I brought with me and posed with.

Then the next weekend we celebrated by visiting some of our favorite places in the neighborhoods where we lived before we got married, which was also around the time that we bought a house in a different part of Boston. Our biggest challenge in planning the day was that most of our favorite places involve eating, and there are only so many meals we’re capable of eating. But it was a lovely day and we’ll just have to go back soon to hit the rest of our favorites.

Anyway, I thought I’d take the occasion to share another wedding DIY project. We DIYed a lot for the wedding and I’ve written about some of the projects from time to time (past posts include one about our wedding generally, and another about our DIY invitations, escort cards, and guest favors). Today I’m talking about the chalkboard seating sign I made telling guests to sit wherever they wanted during the ceremony (is it bossy if you demand that people do whatever they want?).

Many people are familiar with the wedding tradition where the bride’s family sits on one side and the groom’s on the other, and since we didn’t want to do this we thought we better specify so no one was confused. I’m sure there would have been pure chaos and mayhem if not for this sign.

I came across many different ideas for such signs in the thousands of hours I spent on pinterest wedding planning.

But as of a few months before the wedding, I still didn’t know exactly how I was going to make one for us. Then I was walking to class one day (I was still in grad school at the time), and I came across this beauty on the sidewalk:

Of course I did what any normal person would do, and grabbed it and ran home with it (and then sprinted to class). (UPDATE: an awesome reader has identified this as the MALA easel from IKEA, so if you want to replicate this project but don’t serendipitously find one discarded on the side of the road, you can pick up a new one for just $15!)

For what it’s worth, this is certainly not the strangest trash collecting I did over the course of assembling wedding decor — there was also a phase where I realized I didn’t have enough pasta sauce jars yet for our table centerpieces, and I started picking them out of other people’s recycling whenever I came across them. Sam really did not care for this. But hey, I think our flowers looked lovely, and all the “vases” were free.

Anyway, back to the pristine easel.Clearly it needed a little love to whip it into shape. My first step was to saw off the legs, since I wanted something low to the ground that looked less like a child’s easel. I just used a hand saw, since we were still living in our apartment and I didn’t have a table saw yet.

Next I taped off the chalkboard, since my hope was to preserve that and just paint the frame and the whiteboard side of the easel.

I applied two coats of a semi-gloss turquoise paint I already had on hand — “Woodsy Scent” by Ace, which I’d used to paint a dresser previously. Once again, an illustration of why picking turquoise as one of my wedding colors was so convenient — I had so much turquoise decor and supplies on hand already since it’s my favorite color, so it seriously cut back on what we needed to buy new.

Speaking of favorite color, here’s me admiring how my new sign matches my nail polish.

I did decide that unfortunately the chalkboard surface just wasn’t in good enough condition to keep (the previous owner had made too many permanent marks…SO RUDE!). I had some chalkboard paint in my stash from some past projects, though, so I just applied two coats of that to give it a clean new surface.

Lastly, I used a chalk pen (which I find is easier to work with than actual chalk) to write a message on the new sign. Here is it hanging out in our apartment:

And on wedding day:

With the fortuitous roadside rescue, this turned out to be a 100% free project, which in an engaged couple’s world is reason for celebration. Free easel, I want to spend my life with you!

(Sharing at AKA Design, Two Uses Tuesday,  Think and Make Thursday, Your Turn to Shine, Link Party Palooza,  That DIY Party, Your Turn to Shine Link Party, One Project at a Time, August Before and After, Remodelaholic, and Tip Me Tuesday.)