One of the more daunting aspects of our new live music venue (you can read more about it HERE, HERE and HERE) was the long expanses of empty wall space. The room is shaped like a long shoebox, so I had miles of empty space to decorate, and I needed to do it on a budget. One of the DIY solutions I came up was this Decoupage Chalkboard Sign I made from a thrift store painting, leftover chalkboard paint and a batch of postcards I picked up during a visit to Philadelphia.
Philly is one of our absolute favorite places to visit and the DRG and I try to get there at least a couple of times of year. Our most recent trip was in November, so we were able to visit the outdoor Christmas Village in Love Park and the new Wintergarden across the street next to city hall. One of the stands was selling postcards featuring black and white photos of individual letters and numbers. I thought I could make something cool for the room, so we picked out cards that spelled out “Listening Room at 443”.
I wasn’t totally sure what I was going to do with them, and they sat in the dining room for months before I thought about it again. Then one day I spotted an old painting at the thrift store for $4.99 and it sparked an idea.
The painting was long and narrow and the ornate gold frame was in pretty good shape. I’m sure it hung over someone’s sofa for years before finding it’s way to my local thrift store. I decided to cover the painting with chalkboard paint and decoupage the postcards over that.
No more “April in Paris”…sorry J. Warner.
I gave it 3 or 4 coats of chalkboard paint, then carefully arranged the numbers and letters.
I used matte Mod Podge to attach the cards.
Once I finished decoupaging the cards and everything dried, I thought there was a little too much blank space around the words “room” and the “443”, so I had my artistic friend Alyssa add some chalk doodles.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with it.
It ended up being the perfect size to hang under one of the windows in the back of the room.
Thanks for following along with my wacky projects! The room is coming along nicely and right now we’re focusing on building the bar top and navigating through the permitting process.
Spoiler: It’s NO FUN
