DIY Birthday "Faux" Chalkboard

This is the 2nd time I'm posting this b/c Blogger let me publish and then it disappeared. AUGH.

These types of "stat" boards have been appearing all over Pinterest and Etsy so of course I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and have one for Sebastian's birthday. But do you think I'm going to pay $20+ JUST FOR THE FILE?! Hell to the no. I'm cheap.

So I made one myself, of course.

Here's how I did it.

Materials:

black foamboard (I got mine at Joann's with a 50% off coupon for a whopping $2)
gel/metallic markers/colored pencils/crayons (I used Crayolas because I'm a crayon brand snob)
a dull pencil
tape
a computer with Powerpoint or Word or Photoshop
printer
tape
scissors or paper trimmer

First I went on DaFont and downloaded a bunch of cutesy chalkboard fonts. Then I opened up Powerpoint and created a slide the same size as my foamboard (20 in X 30 in) and designed what I wanted the board to look like:

But, I don't have a fancy schmancy printer that prints 20 in x 30 in (if I did, there really wouldn't be a point to this post) so I went on Google and searched "how to print large picture on multiple sheets) and found this site: Block Posters. It allows you to upload your file and print it as big as you'd like. So I uploaded my slide (which I saved as a JPEG) and selected for it to print on TWO LANDSCAPE LETTER sized sheets across. I put that in caps because I am embarrassed to admit how many sheets of paper I fucked up with the wrong sizing.

Ok, so it printed on 8 sheets. I laid them out on my foamboard:

See that gap where the margins are? Yeah, not gonna work for me. I'm anal retentive. So I pulled out my paper trimmer and got rid of the access.

Does it look SO much better? Humor me, people.

I taped all the sheets of paper together then put a small piece of tape at the top to keep it from moving on the foamboard.

Then I did something that did not work but I'm going to tell you anyway. I rubbed chalk on the back of the paper thinking that when I traced, it would transfer over onto the foamboard. It did not, so don't even bother. It'll just get chalk on your board for no reason.

I began to trace the letters, pressing firmly. This will leave an imprint on your board.

Here's my tip. DO NOT TRACE THE WHOLE PIECE IN ONE SHOT. You'll make more mistakes and it'll be a bigger pain in the ass to fix. Trace a small part, then lift the paper, and retrace with your gel/metallic markers/colored pencils/crayons.