Craft Chameleon Blog: DIY Days 'til Board

I absolutely love the cute "Days 'til" boards but to be honest, where are these people storing all of them? Seriously, I have no where to store a board for every holiday!
That is where my Days 'til board comes into play! It is something that I can leave up ALL YEAR ROUND!!

When creating my board I knew I needed it to be multi functional and what better way to do that then with Punch Place Plus's Photo Acrylic & Nails?!

They come in various sizes and are great for not only the Days 'til board but for those hard to buy for people too! Imagine putting your family's photo in there with a great quote or your family motto...a gift worth keep and displaying!

I started out with a board that was originally painted black but decided that I wanted mine to be chalkboard so that I could easily write the new days and erase for each new holiday.

If you want to do your board like I did mine, these are the items you'll need:

Photo Acrylic & Nails
Board sized to whatever size acrylic you use
Acrylic Paint
Chalkboard Paint
Paint Brushes
Vinyl, stencil or scrap paper letters
Hammer
Scrapbook paper to change out the seasons/holidays

Have your supplies? Alright, let's get started!!

I started off by painting my board using Apple Barrel Matte Acrylic Paint in White.

Once the board was covered the way that I liked it, I got out my chalk board paint, I used , Krylon Chalkboard indoor paint.

I used vinyl to cut out my Days 'til so I didn't have to write it out each time. I laid the acrylic on my board to see about how big to make the Days 'til and once I got it where I liked it, I cut it out.

Once cut out, I laid it back onto my board to make sure I liked the placement and realized that I didn't have anywhere to write my days so I cut the 'til off and placed it off to the side a little bit.

Next, I added the vinyl onto the board and burnished it really, really well with my fingers and then released the carrier sheet.
When you release the carrier sheet make sure you pull it off at an angle and not just pull it right off. This helps with any of the letter lifting and if you do notice they want to stay on the carrier sheet, they're easier to lay back down by putting the carrier sheet back over it.

Once the vinyl is in place, go back over it again making sure that it is pressed into the grooves of the board so that when you paint your chalkboard paint over the top it won't have any leaking under the letters.

After I felt the letters were stuck onto the board good, I started adding my black chalkboard paint. I was careful not to brush over the top of the letters but rather dab the paint over them and then smooth it out. (You don't want to risk getting any paint under your letters!) I did about two coats of chalkboard paint.

You'll need to wait two days for the chalkboard paint to fully dry but before that, you'll want to pull your vinyl letters off. If you wait until it's dry they are a lot harder to get off.

I used a cuticle pusher to get my vinyl letters off and as you can see, it pushed the chalkboard paint into the white paint so maybe try a safety pin or something a bit smaller. Once I got the corner up, I used tweezers to pull the rest of the vinyl off.

Now we are ready to add our Photo Acrylic and Nails!!
But first I want to show you one of the things that I love about the Photo Acrylic and Nails from Punch Place Plus!!

The Photo Acrylic comes with this great protective covering on it until you're ready to use it!! NO scratching, NO scuffing, NO finger prints!!

You can choose which nails you want for the look you're going for!
They come in three choices; Mule Barn (black), Traditional Gold and Classic Nickle.

It is really hard to tell from the picture but they also come with a clear static cling liner that helps keep your pictures in place whether you want to hang it on the wall or place it on an easel, they will NOT fall out!!

Okay back to the board!

Once you've chosen your finishes, you're going to decide where you want your acrylic.

I placed my nail into the hole and did a pilot hole on each side before placing them into the board (that way they go in straight and not at an angle-trust me!)

After you're finished, you can start hammering them in slowly. You don't want to do it quick because you are going to need to place something between the hammer and acrylic once you get close to it. I used a paper towel. I just placed it over my nail and hammered until it was as close as I could get it without having the acrylic touching the board completely (so I can get my images out easily).

You're now ready to add your photo or in my case scrapbook paper!

Here is a better view of how that static cling holds your pictures or paper in there without them falling out.

I used scrapbook paper for the inserts of my Days 'til board so I can easily switch them out for each holiday. I have only done a few (for now) but I think I will add a piece of plastic sleeve to the back of my board to store all of my pieces in!