October is here and that means it is time to get ready for Christmas at our house. Don’t tell me it’s too early. We know what we’re doing!
My sister Genny is my right hand elf at Christmas time. She comes down on weekends when she is able and helps put up the trees and decorations. This weekend we will be working on the chalkboard tree. The chalkboard is eight feet tall and about three feet across. It’s a dark green chalkboard paint over a lighter green wall color. It fits right between the west door into the kitchen and south facing window in the music room.
The 2012 tree was based on one I found online. It, in turn, had been modeled after a wall hanging. I added a nativity under my version.
In 2013, we did a “Twelve Days of Christmas” theme. Under the tree were two of our cats, Zak and Cedar.
Last year, it was a nativity scene.
This year, we are going with a toy theme. I googled << Christmas toy coloring page >> and found a lot of ideas there. I also googled << Christmas ornament clip art >> for ornament ideas. If I wanted a particular item, like the red wagon, I googled << red wagon clip art >> or << red wagon coloring page >>.
I saved pictures I liked to a Pinterest board: chalkboard tree 2015. When I had a good collection of ideas there, I began printing the ones I really liked. Keeping in mind that the spaces between branches would be eleven inches, I was able to guesstimate sizes.
Middle Daughter chalked a line down the middle of the chalkboard as a guide for the trunk and then chalked branch lines eleven inches apart. She helped by taping pictures to the wall so I could get an idea of how to lay them out.
If you look closely, you can see some of the fiddling we did with the pictures. Tape it. Look at it. Move it. Tape it. Look at it….
Genny arrived this evening and she and I did more fiddling before bedtime.
We plan to start marking the patterns on the wall tomorrow morning. Then it will be time to chalk!
I’ll post our progress as we go along. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
Note: See progress here! Chalkboard Tree in Progress
~~Rhonda