Serving Up Chalkboard

I own a book called Table Inspirations by Emily Chalmers (Available from Amazon here).  It is filled with lots of ideas for decorating your dining table and absolutely beautiful photography.  In the photo below a piece of slate with chalk writing is used as a place mat.

Source Table Inspirations by Emily Chalmers

 Slate is a little hard to come by in Brisbane but I thought I could probably achieve something similar with an MDF place mat and some chalkboard paint.

Firstly I had to seal the fibreboard (birch) with a sealer/undercoat.  I use Taubmans 3 in 1. Then I gave the place mats 2-3 coats of chalkboard paint. 

When they were dry I seasoned the chalkboard by rubbing it all over with the side of a piece of chalk, and then wiping it clean.  I added some felt (or you could use cork) feet to the bottom of the place mat to protect the surface of the table.  This is the end result.....

Hmmmm.... A little boring I think.  So I grabbed a rubber stamp and some Stayzon Opaque white ink and added this.

A damask stamp to the bottom corner.

A scroll corner stamp.

I found the mini easel in the discount store.  It was a bright gold colour, so it got a coat of white paint.

I can imagine painting a long strip of wood to use as a table runner down the centre of a table, or large square place mats.  You could place a small mason jar of chalk on the table so your guests could play naughts and crosses (tic, tac, toe) or write messages.  You could stamp any design onto the chalkboard - hydrangea, bird, chandelier ....  Oh the possibilities.

P.S  The little chalkboard labels on twine were from Somerfield - a funny little supermarket in London.

Showing my crafty side here: