$6 Rustic Chalkboard Crate

I am so humbled by the overwhelming response some of my posts have gotten on my blog. I know it's a silly thing to most people to get excited about .. but, as of the beginning of February, I had MAYBE 400 views on this blog. Now. granted I didn't post much, I just liked to stalk read other blogs.

But, let me tell ya'll something, apparently people LOVE buffalo chicken. I mean so much so, that in the one day alone that I posted my Buffalo Chicken Sliders onto my Pinterest, I had over 2,000 page views just to that one post alone. I was shocked. But, at the same time, so happy with peoples response to them. I mean after all, they are to die for good. So, I just wanted to say thank you to all my new readers that I have gained, and I hope to bring you more recipes and ideas that you can use in your own life :)

So today I wanted to share a simple and super cost efficient storage solution. A few days ago I posted about our Pantry Makeover and you may have noticed the little chalkboard crate at the bottom of the pantry in which I said I would be posting a how-to on how I turned it into a chalkboard basket to store all of our extra items in the pantry.

This thing was probably the easiest/best $6 I've ever spent. Our local Home Depot started selling these wooden crates/storage boxes around Christmas time and I knew I could do something with them, so I scooped two up and brought them home..

Originally I was planning on using them for blanket storage in our living room, but once the pantry was complete a little light bulb popped on in my head and gave me the great idea of using them for all of the miscellaneous items the bottom of our pantry seems to collect. I already had the stain on hand, as well as the chalkboard paint.

I started out by staining the entire crate in Mixwax Jacobean. It turned out a little darker than I originally wanted, so I rough sanded it once it was dry, and gave the stain great color variation in some spots :)
Once the stain was completely dry, I sprayed one end of the crate with two coats of chalkboard paint spray paint, aka heaven in a can ;) Once it was dry, I put all of the extra items in there and there you have it .. simple, stylish, and efficient!