Chalkboard Light 'Bulbles'

Continuing with the chalkboard theme from my last post, this is my entry to a LightBulbs Direct competition where us bloggers were tasked to come up with an idea for decorating old light bulbs. Having recently sketched a Christmas tree onto our chalkboard wall, it gave me the idea to try chalkboard paint on 3 old light bulbs I found in the house that don’t work anymore.

I wasn’t sure how the glass would take the paint, it went on looking a little watery so I thought I’d probably have to do a couple of coats. But then it actually dried to a smooth matt black finish – great! I just hung the painted bulbs up and it didn’t take long at all for them to dry.

Once they were touch dry, I cut some ribbon lengths to make a hanging loop and began wrapping ordinary twine around the bulb socket and ribbon ends.

The next thing I did was head to Pinterest to check out ways to draw some nice chalk letters, you can probably tell from my search the plan I had in mind for my three bulbs.

I went free hand with a chalkboard ink marker pen, since the bulbs were different sizes and had three different ribbons, so I thought the hand drawn rustic look was acceptable. For more uniform lettering, it would make sense to print off your preferred letters and cut them out to make stencils – a bit more fiddly, but would certainly give a nice professional finish.

This would make a really fun craft for kids, just using whatever paints/stickers/glitter/ribbons you have to hand. They could maybe make a snowman or a Santa Claus face on their ‘bulbles’. It’s certainly one way to use old bulbs!

Thanks to LightBulbs Direct for inviting me to enter this fun competition.