Chalkboard Paper

We are not sure how long we will be living in Jakarta exactly so I have been trying very hard not to accumulate alot of things.  We came over with a few suitcases and that is how we plan on leaving.  The kids used to have a big chalkboard easel that they liked to play with.  A while ago, I saw an image online of a child's room that had been decorated with cut out images from chalkboard paper.  The images were in the shape of flowers and kids could then color on the chalkboard paper with chalk.  Back then I thought it was a great idea, but I never did follow up on the idea.

 I recently decided to read up on chalkboard paper and found that you can use black contact paper the same way.  I meant to put in an order for black contact paper before we left to go back to Texas so that I could pick it up while we were there.  I forgot to order the paper.  Luckily, my sister-in-law, who happens to be an elementary education major, had a large roll of black contact paper.  She had affixed a large piece to their refigerator for her kids to draw or color on.   She offered to let me have as much black contact paper as I wanted.  I cut out a piece that I thought would be a good size for my younger daughter's room.  Both my girls love it!  The chalk adheres really well to the contact paper.  The paper can always be removed without damaging the walls.  I've left contact paper on for years and it doesn't damage the walls.  However, on flat paint, it does seem to leave a little bit of a sticky residue.  It's not really noticeable though. 

A large roll of black contact paper costs around $6 to $7.  Another one of my sister-in-laws said that you can order contact paper through office supply stores like STAPLES so that you don't have to incur shipping costs.  I really like the black contact paper chalkboard.  You can also adhere the black contact paper to a magnetic board to make a magnetic chalkboard.  I might move the contact paper to the refrigerator so that it can be a combination chalkboard/magnetic board and it would also be a good message board. 

If you are interested in using contact paper to make wall decals, check out my post on contact paper wall art.  

Contact Paper Wall Art

Since we are living in a rental place, I didn’t want to do anything permanent to the walls.  So, I designed some wall lettering for the living room and art for the nursery and painted the designs onto clear contact paper. Then I cut out the pictures and phrases and pasted them to the wall.  Contact paper isn’t very sticky and easily peels off walls without taking off the paint.  An entire roll of contact paper costs around $5.00-$6.00 for the larger size so you can do quite a bit of decorating.  I did all the pictures in the nursery and the letters for the front room and still had left over material.

This is the phrase in the living room.  I used my inkjet printer to print the letters in the size (3” tall) and font that I wanted.  Then I placed the contact paper over the letters and traced the outline of the letters using a black marker.   I painted in the lines using charcoal-colored craft paint and then cut out ‘A Happy Family’ and ‘is Heaven on Earth’ as two separate pieces.  Make sure your wall is clean and dry and then stick the contact paper to the wall. 
The design is reusable.  I actually made this phrase and used it in our last house.  I pulled the words off the wall at our previous house and put them on wax paper, rolled it up, and then peeled it off the wax paper and put it on the new wall.  It doesn’t hurt the wax paper either so that can be re-used.
Unless you cut out each letter, you can sometimes see the clear contact paper on the wall.  I haven’t had anyone say that they thought it looked awful.  On the contrary, most people that have been to my home want to know how I made the letters and the pictures.  They’ll think you’re creative and you definitely can be.  The sky’s the limit when it comes to what you can design.
So besides the fact that it’s very inexpensive and not really all that time-consuming to make your own wall letters and art, I also like the fact that you can customize it with multiple colors or however you want. It’s hard to see, but in the phrase ‘It’s a Jungle Out There’ the words are outlined in a deep green and then painted in with a mint green.

I free-handed the animals using the bedding and some nursery toys as my inspiration.  You can make some pretty large designs.  You can buy contact paper that is 18” wide so that would be the width limit, but the length is whatever you would like.  The giraffe is probably a foot or so tall.  I also put colored spots all over the walls.  I used different sized cups and bowls and traced circles which I then painted different colors. 


My sister-in-law calls me the queen of contact paper..lol!  Have fun decorating with contact paper…I sure do!