Don’t you just love getting packages? When I buy things offline, I tend to go a little clicker-crazy with my mouse. Thus, my memory of what exactly I buy gets a little fuzzy and I am happily surprised when something shows up at our door. Lately, these little virtual shopping sprees are wedding related – I recently bought a custom chevron runner from Etsy.com and tiny test tubes for favors (all to be revealed in later posts once I’m able to get things going), and one other small purchase that I am going to chat about today.
To give you a little perspective, this isn’t a very large package (as seen beside an apple below), but it still packs a lot of excitement in its close quarters.
Behold my latest purchase – A chalk ink pen:
If you are familiar with our little blog, you might know about the chalkboard calendar I made in the kitchen (for all the details, click here). We love our custom calendar and use it all the time, but we have a bit of trouble reading our writing…Even though our daily squares are a generous 3″x3″, I have to abbreviate every task and could only fit one thing per day – Our social life was just about killed when I was forced to limit us to one activity a day (totally kidding, by the way).
For example, “Valentine’s Day” had to be written as “V-Day” on our calendar, and there was no way I could document what our special holiday plans were (which ended up being a Harry Potter movie and pizza subs at home, if you’re curious).
I’ve known about chalk ink pens for a while now, ever since I saw my inspiration image on Etsy for the calendar itself way back when. But I wasn’t so sure about using ink on my then-brand new calendar – Almost a year later, I’m feeling a bit more adventurous. This and my mom mentioned that I should go ahead and pick one up for the chalkboard menu I’m DIY-ing for the wedding (more on that in a sec). So last week, a click of my mouse sent a fresh chalk ink pen my way.
When it finally arrived, I immediately broke it out and followed the instructions – Shake the marker and depress the tip into the core of the pen until it is soaked in the chalk ink. Within seconds, I was ready to try it out – I started by rewriting my “V-Day” note:
SUCH a big difference. I was able to write it out entirely and you can actually read it. It’s a miracle…Here are a few zoomed out shots for more comparison.
That little “Valentine’s Day” is the crispest note on our calendar amongst all of the other abbreviated scrawls from a chunk of regular chalk. I have since rewritten everything on the calendar and all is finally easy to read and even John can try his hand at putting up some tasks (he didn’t even try when we were using regular chalk).
See all of those “B-A,” “B-T,” “B-C” notations? Those actually stand for “Bachelor-Alyssa,” “Bachelor-Tara,” “Bachelor-Carrie.” Now I know at a glance where we are watching our fave show of the moment (Seriously, Ben. COURTNEY IS INSANE!!!!!!!). Life is so much easier now that we can read our calendar without squinting…Is that sad?
Oh and in terms of wipeability? I gave it a test run, and all wipes off cleanly without a trace using a damp rag. With the hot craze of chalkboard paint on anything and everything these days, I wanted to make sure I let you all know that chalk ink pens are A-W-E-S-O-M-E. If you want your own, I bought mine here for only $7 (including tax and shipping).
Before I leave you, I wanted to tease that chalkboard menu for the wedding that I mentioned earlier. After seeing this image on Pinterest, I knew that I wanted to try it out:
Source: This is glamorous
I have been meaning to pick up a thrift store frame with a gold finish for the past several weekends, but budget and time didn’t really allow for it. Luckily for me, during a wedding-to-do-list rehash with one of my bridesmaids, she mentioned having something that might work for me. While going through the home of her grandfather who recently passed away, her family came across an old framed portrait. Savannah (whom you might know from this post, or this one or this one) quickly saved it from the trash pile, thinking it could be a fun revamp project. She has since left it in my possession and I am so excited to prettify this beautiful antique.
The plan is to replace all of the old and broken wood slates, remove the glass and put in a piece of chalkboard-painted wood instead. The other to-do-list item is to remove the cracked and torn portrait left behind the glass. It’s really quite creepy up close…Although I’m sort of sad that it can’t be salvaged.
I’ll be back with more on that in the next few weeks.
Hope everyone enjoyed a very happy Valentine’s Day!
