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I'm having an exceptionally challenging time not sharing about the incredible homemade kitchen that John has made for Ruby. It's nearing completion, but I know better than to share pics just yet... don't worry, you'll all the juicy details soon enough! In the meantime, check out this fun little chalkboard that I made for Ruby. I made it to distract her from the horrendously long trip we took down to Missouri over Christmas. OK, so it was only about 11 hours, but this kid is notorious for having a challenging ride up to Duluth (about 4.5 hours), so I figured this trip would be bad news. John & I decided to drive through the night so that she would (fingers crossed) sleep the entire time, but just in case, I wanted to have all kinds of fun, new things to distract her & this was one of them.

I was so thrilled that she slept the nearly the whole way, so we didn't even bust this board out until we were home & I needed some much needed alone time in the kitchen. She now really enjoys happily marking the board up with the calk & cleaning it off with a rag & repeating the process like 456 times (btw, I can't wait to try out this homemade sidewalk chalk recipe this summer!)

This was the tray that I bought from Goodwill for $1.99. I doubled-checked to make sure that it was magnetic before purchasing

Here's the finished board. I used Krylon's spray chalkboard paint & it worked wonderfully. I sprayed 3 very thin layers of the paint & let it dry overnight (let it dry for 15-20 minutes in between each layer). Then I used the chalk to cover the entire board & then wiped it off before using it for the first time.

Some little felt magnets that I made out of scraps left over from her bird mobile. I just hot glued the felt on to little magnets I found at Hobby Lobby. I hot glued a larger piece of felt on the back of the board to make it less slippery on her lap.

I made some additional letter magnets for the fridge (selfishly, so I wouldn't have to look at/constantly pick up those annoying plastic ones that every child somehow gets)