How to Upcycle an Old Globe into a Chalkboard Globe

It all started when I spied a dry-erase write-on globe in one of those fancy-pants homeschool supplies catalogue. Seriously, how cool would a write-on globe be? The kids can draw the countries and continents right on it, you can illustrate migration routes, you can draw in the red states and the blue ones on election day, and you could even write the grocery list on it, or a happy birthday message, or whatever you want–it’s a write-on globe!

Then I saw the price of the dry-erase write-on globe, and I realized that I would not be purchasing it after all, on account of I prefer to be able to buy groceries and pay the mortgage.

And still the thought of that write-on globe has been ticking around in my head for many months, until last weekend, when I stopped by an out-of-season yard sale and spied a beat-up old globe. It still had the USSR proudly marked on it, bless its heart, and therefore certainly had no place in my little geographically accurate homeschool.

Unless…

Check out how I turned that sad old globe into the write-on globe of my dreams, and grab some chalkboard paint of your own, because you can totally do this, too:

If your globe is gorgeous and smooth and pristine you may not need to do this first step, but my globe? It was crazy beat-up, with parts actually peeling away or torn off, and so I peeled the entire top layer of paper off of my globe.

The benefit to doing this is that I took the globe down to a perfectly smooth layer of plain cardboard, ready to be primed, but it was a lot of fussy work and it took an entire episode of Grey’s Anatomy to complete, so if your globe is clean and smooth and your primer will work over that smooth, sealed top paper layer, then breeze on through to the next step.

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