DIY Pot Lid Clock

My apologies for not writing last week, faithful readers. I’ve entered crunch-time for my school program, and I have been essay-ing more than I can handle. And I have so much more essay-ing to do! 

Anyways, life is never too busy for crafting. Here’s something I whipped up a couple months ago: 

I went to a thrift shop to get a cheap pot lid to make a craft. A pot lid chalk board clock, to be exact. 

I found one I liked, but it came with a pot (logically), so I asked the girl at the checkout if I could pay half price for just the lid. She said no! I was a little surprised by that. It is a thrift store after all, and they had plenty of pots with no lids on the shelf. So I came home with this: 

I brought the pot to a used-goods donation center a couple days later. 

Anyways, I chose this lid for two reasons, neither of which related to its black paint job. In fact, I would hazard a guess that the lid being black prior to my crafting made it harder to paint it with chalkboard paint, because it was harder to tell what areas had or had not received sufficient paint coverage. No, the reasons I chose this lid were because of its size and how the handle was affixed to the top. 

It was easy to take the handle off because it was screwed on, not riveted. And being a knob type handle, rather than one of those fancy handles that curve and attach at its two ends, means that I already had a hole for the clock mechanisms. 

This hole, as it turned out, was smaller than the clock mechanisms, but larger than my biggest drill bit, so out came the needle-nose pliers. I went around the hole, bit by bit, stretching the metal back to make the hole bigger. It worked like a charm! 

Only then, once I knew for sure the clock mechanisms would fit, did I paint the pot with chalkboard paint. Two coats to be exact. 

As for the fancy lettering I put on the front, I got a template from Precious Sister's blog. She did this craft first, and was my inspiration, and I used her design, and this project was not at all a Kneesh original. 

So, print out the template from her blog, or make your own design on a piece of paper, chalk the back of the paper, hold it in place on the pot lid as you trace the design with a pencil, and look at how great the chalk transferred onto the lid: 

Too great! 

What a mess. I just wrapped a tissue around the end of my pencil and carefully rubbed off the excess chalk. 

Much better. 

Then spray the whole thing with a clear acrylic top coat. Be careful though! Too much top coat will wash away the chalk! Multiple thin coats are always recommended over one heavy coat, but that is especially important in this particular case. 

Once totally dry, add your clock mechanism (I got a kit from Michael’s with black hands that I painted white with acrylic paint then top coated with spray acrylic), and ta-da: 

Beauty.

This has inspired me to make a clock out of pretty much anything and everything. So many clocks to be made, so little time (groan...).