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Santa brought my son this super cool Arduino powered DIY Gamer kit by the folks at Technology Will Save Us.  Naturally, I had to check it out for myself.

It comes in two models, soldered and unsoldered.  We got the soldered one because my son asked Santa to do all the hard work.  Wink!  Wink!

We put it together in about fifteen minutes and began loading the fun little games from their Gamer library.  You got some mad coding skills Santa!

There’s even an tool that you can use to build animations like this crashing wave (see pic).

DIY Gamer Fun

DIY Chalkboard Sign – 1st Attempt

Here’s my first attempt at making a chalkboard sign.  It was for my daughter’s preschool spring carnival (cowpoke theme).  Naturally, I had to do things the “easy” way.  Why go out and by a chalkboard when you can make one yourself.  wink! wink!  No seriously, when one of the parents brought it a piece of plywood (for reuse), I jumped at the idea.  Everything I needed was available at the hardware store (see materials below).

Once I got home I started spreading the “plastic wood” over all the holes and cracked in the plywood.  When it dried (about 1-2 hours), I started sanding it down with a hand held electric sander.  Then I sprayed 1-2 coats of primer and then 1-2 coats of chalkboard paint (letting it dry after each coat of course).  The result was a smooth slate-like chalkboard surface.  I wasn’t expecting this, but was definitely pleased with the outcome.

As for the design, I basically followed the theme of the event flyer (western, cowpoke, etc).  I used regular chalk to create the background and chalk markers (Crafty Croc from Amazon) for the lettering.

There are plenty of other chalkboard designs to check out on the web.  I posted my favorites to my Pinterest site.

Materials:

1 pint of “Plastic wood” to smooth out the deep cracks and holes in the wood.
1 can of enamel spray paint (preferably white)
1 can of Rustoleum chalkboard paint
1 pack of colored chalk
1 pack of chalk markers