Chalkboard Cheese Plate

Earlier this month I wrote a guest post for Frugal Foodie Mama as part of her Santa’s Little Bloggers series. If you didn’t catch the series or haven’t been to her site check it out there were some really great posts. I thought I would go ahead and share the post with you here. This could make a great last minute gift for someone on your list.

I grew up with two brothers who have now all met their significant others and I have a cutie pie nephew in addition to my husband and two little monkeys, so my family is pretty big, especially when you start thinking about buying gifts for everyone. We love Christmas and spending time with family but it can get stressful shopping for everyone. This year we are all going up to a cabin in the mountains and hopefully getting a white Christmas. To take some stress out of the holiday we’ve decided to make it a homemade Christmas. I’m excited to see what everyone comes up with. We eat a lot of cheese in my family so I thought making a cheese plate would be fun. I know I’m late to the game but I love chalkboard paint. I have to really hold myself back from just turning everything into a chalkboard. I originally thought I could find a platter at the dollar store and use that but there wasn’t really anything that I liked. I wanted something that was all white. I went to Home Goods and found a set of 4 over sized dinner plates. They are supposed to be professional quality (I didn’t know there was such a thing) and they’re very heavy. I got the set for 14.95. This is more than the dollar store but it is much better quality and works out to less than $4 a plate, so I was OK with that. The rest of the items needed I had on hand so it was a very inexpensive gift to make. Here’s how I did it.

What you’ll need:

chalkboard Spray paint
rough sand paper
painters tape
rubbing alcohol
plate or platter

Using a rough piece of sand paper, scratch up the area that you’ll be painting. This way the paint will stick better. Be sure that you’re careful not to scratch the area that you won’t be painting. I just did this until the polish wasn’t so shiny.

Once you’ve you’ve finished sanding the surface, you’ll want to clean the plate. I used rubbing alcohol so that there wasn’t any soapy residue left over that could cause the paint to peel up later.

Tape off the area that you’ll be painting. Don’t forget to wrap around the edge of the plate so that you don’t have stray black edges.

I then painted the plate outside. It will dry fairly quickly if you use the spray paint. Once the first coat is dry, apply the second. Read the directions on your paint but generally you’ll need to allow it to dry for 24 hours before you use it. You’ll condition the chalkboard before the first use by rubbing it with the side of a piece of chalk. This prevents having something burned into the chalkboard.

I made a gift basket using a basket that I got from Goodwill and some red ribbon. I also found the cheese slicer and knives in the dollar section of Target so I included those. I bought a small piece of cheese to put in the basket but you’ll oviously want to wait until just before you give it to put it in the basket. I might even put a bottle of wine in to fill it out. This gift is fantastic to give for a Christmas gift or you could even make it for a house warming gift during the year. Merry Christmas!!!

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5 Time Saving Secrets

How to Get Dinner on the Table...FAST