You don’t have to buy a chalkboard you just need to buy chalkboard paint from your local hardware store. I found mine with the spray paint at Home Depot. To make the chalkboard you have a couple options. 1.) You can get a piece of wood cut to fit inside your frame (or diy if you have the right kind of saw at home)and then prime and paint. 2.) You can paint over the mirror. I didn’t want to do this because I thought I might want to use the mirror with the frame at a different time. You also might have a hard time with paint not sticking or chipping from the surface. If you choose this option make sure you prime the surface and you may want to talk to someone at the hardware store to find out more about what type of primer would work best on a mirror surface. 3.) Paint the backing that keeps the mirror in place. This is actually what we did. The problem is that our backing was a warped piece of cardboard. It works really well but if we weren’t trying to get the project done quickly for our engagement photos then I probably would have gone with option #1.

Good luck Shawna! Let me know if you have any more questions.

PS My friend used Mary Sledd for her wedding… her pictures were beautiful.

Sara– that’s a huge project but I have no doubt that you’ll be able to pull it off. The things that you do are always amazing, but I definitely see how it would be really intimidating!

Thanks again for the great compliments you guys!