I got tired of looking at my boring, old ratty sketchbook and decided to give it some flair. I got the idea after thinking how cool it would look if my sketchbook looked like a chalkboard, so here we go!

Step 1: What You'll Need

You will need:

~ Some neon acrylic paint
~ A sketchbook with an all-black binding
~ A paintbrush with flat bristles
~ Watercolor pencils OR colored pencils
~ A small cup of water and a Kleenex

Step 2: Sketching Your Design

For my sketchbook, I'm going to do a basic cover with my name and a couple of small decals.
The first thing I did was sketch out my name, using my red and black pencils. I used black first, but then switched to red because it was easier for me to see.

I then used a yellow for small things to go around my name like hearts, a music note, a peace sign, and a smiley face. :)
After that I used green to make a zigzag border at the bottom.

Step 3: Picking Out the Colors :D

You want to use bright colors so they will show up and look like those bright-colored pieces of chalk you draw on sidewalks with. I picked a light purple, lavender, hot pink, yellow, lime green, and a bright orange. (It's not in the picture here, but I added in the orange at the end.)

Step 4: Doing the Name

Using the lavender for my name, I painted the lines once, then went back over the lines to make it nice and bright. You can go over the lines as many times as you want. For the design my name is in, I went back in and filled the insides of the "J" and the "D" to make it look like someone colored them in on a chalkboard.

Step 5: Doing the Small Decals

For doing any small things, like hearts and such, you have to have a really steady hand for this one :). I used the yellow.

Step 6: Doing the Zigzag Border :)

This step was my favorite one to do. I used the light purple and hot pink as the outside layers, and the lime green as the center.

Step 7: Adding in That Missing Orange ;)

Remember that orange I forgot to take a picture of? Well, here it is! I used it to fill in the blank spaces on the "a" and the "e". I also added in some green to the "J" and the "D".