French Printable Chalkboard Labels or Tags – Free!

Hello, Graphics Fairy friends! Diana from Dreams Factory here with another simple but beautiful project you just have to try! Today we are making some DIY French Faux Chalkboard Labels or Tags, with some Free French Printable Chalkboard Labels!

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I’ve always loved the idea of chalkboards and at one point I even created one for our home. This chalkboard has beautiful white, chippy and distressed frames and I just love it! My handwriting is not that great on the other hand and our chalkboard lays pretty much unwritten all the time, not delivering … it’s chalky promises 🙂

I really wanted to be able to somehow incorporate in our home decor some of that white and chalky ‘handwriting’ that gives a chalkboard its identity. So I decided to take matter into my own hands and created these amazing Free French Printable Chalkboard Labels or Tags! I used a few of my favorites French graphics from The Graphics Fairy and I designed not 1 or 2… but 19 different chalkboard labels or tags, in different sizes, one more beautiful than the others, you could even use them as chalkboard stickers!

A little behind the scenes talk… I’m so in love with all the graphics from The Graphics Fairy that I’m usually having a hard time selecting and then deciding on using only a few of these beauties. I’ve had this ‘problem’ with other projects too and believe me, it’s the hardest part of the whole process! 🙂

Oh, the amazing details!

So because I simply couldn’t decide, today’s project comes with 2 printable sheets 🙂 You can print and use only one or both of them!

—-> Click HERE to Download the Full Size Printable PDF <—-

As you can see, the labels are designed with a black ‘whitewashed’ background with a few ‘chalky’ accents here and there, just like you would normally find on a regular chalkboard. But I’ll also show you how you can go more into deep with the whole chalkboard concept and enhance everything with a small amount of white paint!

I loved the idea of creating several sizes because I thought it would be so much easier  to integrate them in any home and just use them to embellish different objects you already have around.

Chalkboard-lovers-without-a-great-handwriting … problem solved! 🙂

SUPPLIES:

• chalkboard labels or tags (the printables)
• cardstock paper 
• ink or laserjet printer 
• scissors
• white acrylic paint or white chalk paint
• brushes
• Mod Podge

How to make the DIY French Chalkboard Labels or Tags

Option 1 – Make & use as they are!

This option is pretty much self explanatory – you just print, cut each label using your scissors and use the chalkboards labels or tags as they are. All done! 🙂

Option 2 – Create a DIY chalky look with white paint! 

For this option you will have to brush a little bit of white paint to give the chalkboards a more chalky finished look! And when I say a little bit of paint, I really mean it! We will dry brush the paint so we will only need a small amount to ‘chalkboardize’ all the labels or tags.

We are looking for that whitewashed look chalkboards usually have after writing and erasing the chalk several times, so try keeping that in mind when doing this.

Here we will have two other sub-options.

1. Dry brush a REALLY SMALL amount of white paint using linear motions – up and down, left and right strokes.

Below you can see the final result and the difference between a linear brushed label and a regular (non brushed) one.

2. Dry brush a REALLY SMALL amount of white paint using circular motions. Work in small areas and create circular brush strokes all over the label.

NOTE: We are not using any water to dilute the paint, we need the paint to be super dry for this method! I dipped the tip of my brush into a small amount of paint and dabbed it on almost completely onto a lid before actually applying the linear or circular motions on the paper. If you are not familiar with the dry brushing technique, you can check my DIY Aged French Pots project for more details.

And here below are all of them, each one having its own charm.

So… which one do you like best or feel like it has a more authentic chalkboard look? That is the question, my friends!:)

Now that you have your new DIY French Faux Chalkboard Labels or Tags ready, you only have one thing left to do! Decide what to do with them!

Look around your home for objects that you can decorate and give them a completely new ‘chalkboardy’ makeover. I used Mod Podge and a brush for this step and decorated some painted and distressed recycled tin cans – you can learn how to make the cans here. As an alternative, you could also use the Sticker Glue recipe HERE to make your own Chalkboard Stickers to use in Paper Crafts.

And a beautiful apothecary jar that can be used everywhere in your home! Like maybe for storing your favorite sugar scrub or your favorite detox bath soak? Or your makeup brushes, your colored pencils or even your kitchen utensils? There are so many decorative but also practical options!

The next object I decorated using one of these beautiful DIY French Faux Chalkboard Labels has such a great sentimental value – it’s a vintage email milk jug I have from one of my grandmothers. I actually kind of redecorated it now, if I may say so, you can check this article if you want to see how I first French decorated it a few years ago.

I just love getting creative and adding my personal touches to different decorative objects – this particular enamel milk jug is one of my favorites! You can decorate something similar and use as a vase filled with fresh or dried flowers. Again, endless possibilities here!

Pair it with other smaller ‘chalkboardized’ objects, vintage books, painted pieces of scrap wood and handmade paper to create height and add dimension and you’ll be able to beautifully decorate  your home … in your own terms 😉

You can use vintage books, as I mentioned earlier, but you can also create the vintage part yourself! I have an article on my blog on how to give new books a vintage look using a special ingredient – you can check that article here.

Of course if you don’t want to actually adhere the lovely labels on some of these objects you can simply turn them into … lovely tags! 🙂 Just tie them up to the objects using some twine or some raffia.

You can also use the labels to embellish gifts, chalkboard looks great with brown or white wrapping paper!

As always, I had fun creating this project, I really hope you’ll love it and decide to give it a try!

Would love to know where would you use these DIY French Faux Chalkboard Stickers or Tags, I have a feeling I will be using them a lot! 🙂

I hope you enjoy making these Free French Printable Chalkboard Labels! You might also like some other Chalkboard Labels HERE.. and some beautiful Botanical Labels HERE. 

For more similar projects, you can visit my blog – Dreams Factory.

Have fun creating,
Diana