Santa Knows If You've Been Naughty

The big man, the one with the belly that shakes like a bowl full of jello when he laughs, has a white beard and a red nose (and no, I don't mean your grandpa), is making a list. He is checking it twice. Gonna find out who has been naughty and nice. You might be making a similar list as well! Santa might not be using a chalkboard to track the naughty list, but you sure can! I just love this and had it hanging in my kitchen. Several other people liked it so I mass produced these this holiday season.

I took the covers off of some books I had around my house. The first one pictured (in the red) was from an encyclopedia. Letter S. How fitting. Santa, snow, sugarplums! The middle one (in the blue) was from a book that contained beautiful pictures of nature. Mom and I found it at the Goodwill- the good one in Belton! The final book cover (small and green) was from a Prentice Hall basal textbook for literature. I'm not a big fan of basal textbooks and would rather see kids have real novels in their hands as early as possible. A friend of mine, who shares this view, received this 'naughty sign' and we laughed about the symbolism! Okay, back to the book covers. After you remove the book cover from the book, I used an exacto knife and unity knife, drill holes at the top so you'll have a way to hang your board when it is finished. Paint one side with chalkboard paint (three coats work best for this, allow them to dry between coats).

Once the paint was dry, I added a border of red paper at the bottom that had the words to the song Santa Claus is Coming to Town. The coal was hot glued on...trial and error! I had used regular tacky glue on the one in my kitchen and the dogs thought it was a treat hanging there and it promptly disappeared. If I had to guess, I would guess it was the dog that would NOT sit still for her picture and doesn't appear with the naughty sign around her neck- though that is the one who deserves coal!

I cut the naughty letters with my Cricut but you could use stickers or stencils or stamps. To give the project a bit more dimension, I used the foam stickies (generic brand that were on sale in the middle of the tools at Menards, don't ask!) to lift the letters off the board.

When you attach the chalk, use a white string. I used a red one at the beginning but didn't like how "dirty" it got from the chalk. The white looks cleaner. If that makes sense.

I sure hope your name would go on the Nice List and not the Naughty List. However, with this crafty idea, you can easily put names on the list and take them off with no problem.