Kitchen Chalkboard

A few weeks ago I had my roof replaced.  I took the week off work because there is no back access to my property, so the roofers needed to get through the house... and let's face it, I wasn't going to miss a week of five burly roofers labouring in the extreme heat. There was a moment one of them recreated the coca cola add in the garden: shirt off, head back, sun glistening on tanned torso as he gulped down an ice cold drink...
So... anyway, these roofers arrived with a skip. Skips are very exciting for upcyclers (almost as exciting as half naked roofers!) People throw away the strangest things, some of which are absolutely crying out to be rescued and brought back to life. I haven't started clambering in skips yet, but I will always have a bit of a rummage on the edges to see what I can find. Now, a skip outside your front door is doubly exciting. People bring the upcycling opportunities to you (well, ignoring the dead sofa which was dumped on my skip after the first night - and as a bit of a digression, if you are going to dump a sofa on someone else's skip, don't also dump carrier bags of junk mail with your name and address on it, I mean really, the mongooses!)
Aside from the hundreds of broken slate tiles I rescued, the tacky white bird cage, the ridge tiles to become hedgehog houses (I told the 'gaffer' that and he told the other roofers and there was much hilarity at my expense) and a range of other unrecognised treasures, this blog is about slates on wooden frames. These are made up by the roofers for some very important purpose that I didn't really understand - they just shouted chalkboard to me (although not to the gaffer who gave me another couple from the skip with a look on his face that positively shouted 'she's cuckoo, but she's paying us, so just go with it and don't leave any power tools near her):

 It was an easy upcycle, the type where little input gives maximum effect. I took off one of the chunks of wood and left the other to make a shelf. I painted the slate tile with 3 layers of bright red chalkboard paint and let it dry. Then I painted the frame purple. This is good, as I can change the colour whenever I feel like it.
For the pattern on the front, I used buttons that I inherited from my nana. These are stuck on with super glue. They look lovely and bright in my kitchen.

The chalk board paint and glue were less than £10, so the whole thing was cheaper than buying a chalk board for my kitchen, and I've wanted one for a really long time, but the ones in the shops are all so samey. The trick with this one was being able to look at something and see what it really wants to be, like looking at a caterpillar and seeing a butterfly. Other than that, it was embarrasingly simple.