Materials: MALA Easel
Description: Just because IKEA discontinued the magnetic art easel, doesn't mean your child can't have one.
We bought the easel hoping to create an interactive way to teach our child letters and spelling.
We used painters tape up the edges of the easel, painted on 3 coats of the magnetic paint we purchased at a local Home Depot and TA-DA.. magnetic board!
~ Will, Toronto
Cool! Did you paint the chalkboard side or the whiteboard side? I'd like to make the whiteboard side magnetic, but not sure if is paintable. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteActually.. This is the BACK of the whiteboard (in the event that we might need the whiteboard later). I unscrewed the whiteboard side of the easel and flipped it around.
DeleteI suspect the paint would stick to the whiteboard as the paint is really thick, but if you had any concerns, you could always rough it up with sandpaper before painting it.
Good luck!
This is so cool.Where did you get your magnetic letters and pictures from? They are awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks. The animals and large coloured letters are from a children's puzzle book. Each one is already magnetic. The product can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.melissaanddoug.com/alphabet-learning-puzzle-book
The letter-tiles were originally from a game called "Bananagrams" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananagrams). The tiles are not magnetic, but we went to a local craft store (Michael's) and bought a roll of magnetic tape (a product similar to this: http://www.michaels.com/Magnetic-Tacky-Tape/gc2092,default,pd.html?cgid=products-generalcrafts-aleenes&start=56) and put a piece on the back of each tile.
Neat idea! Can you apply the magnetic paint onto the chalkboard side? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned above, it was applied to the BACK of the whiteboard... you probably could apply it directly on the chalkboard side... You're probably thinking you want it to act as both a chalkboard and magnetic board.. I don't know how the chalk will take to the surface.. probably pretty well.
DeleteHowever, I noticed that this particular product mentions the following:
"Want to create a magnetic chalkboard? No problem! Use Rust-Oleum ChalkbBoard paint to topcoat and now you have a magnetic chalkboard"...
Based on that quote alone, there may be some properties of magnetic base finish alone that may not work well with chalk, but I have no experience using chalk on the painted surface.