DIY Mini Chalkboard Place Cards

I wanted to share a little more of the process for the chalboard place cards I made for my Thanksgiving tablescape yesterday, in case you'd like to make them too. I know you can purchase little easels pre-made, but doing a little work yourself can make this project way more affordable. I purchase 3 of the 1/4" square basswood sticks (24" long) and one sheet of 1/8" thick x 3" wide x 24" long basswood.

I began by cutting the sheet of basswood into 6 pieces at 4" lengths. I didn't need more than an exacto blade to do this.

Then I cut the sticks into 4" lengths with one straight edge and one angled edge.

This is the way I made all of my cuts for the stick. Not to scale, obviously.

For 1/3 of the sticks, I cut them each about 3/4" shorter than the rest. These would be the legs that allowed the chalkboards to tilt back a bit.

Then I painted all the pieces with gold leaf (or gold spray paint, or whatever floats your boat), not worrying about the front sections of the chalkboard too much, since they'd be covered up soon anyway.

Next, I taped off the edged of the fronts of the chalkboards  and then gave them two light coats of chalkboard paint.

Once they dried, I peeled off the tape and touched up any spots where the black paint bled onto the gold.

Then I hot glued two legs to the back of each chalkboard.

And finally, I wedged the last shorter legs into the space between the two glued pieces. I opted not to glue these into position permanently so that it would be easy to store these away between uses.

And that's it. Pretty simple, right? And such a cute detail for your dining companions!