Chalk Talk! Top Tips for Using Your Chalks in Cardmaking & Papercrafts

Hi friends! There are so many cool supplies coming out every day that we can easily be distracted from the gems we already have in our stash. Today I am going to share my top tips and techniques for using chalk. When I say “chalks” I am talking about soft chalky pastels, decorator chalks or even eyeshadow. I bet you have something in your house that will work for these techniques!

I will share techniques using inexpensive supplies from pencils, to pastels to eyeshadow and the neat thing is that for many techniques you can use any of them. I hope this helps you get more use out of what you have or choose the right product if you are looking to add chalk to your stash.  Please note that colored chalkboard chalk is not pigmented enough for good results.

I love the “photo tinting” feeling I get using chalk to color these vintage stamped images from our sponsor Top Flight Stamps (Use coupon code thefrugalcrafter10 to save 10% on your order, also USA orders over $50 ship free!) Speaking of photo tinting you can print out photos in grayscale and use the dry techniques to tint them with chalks. It was one of my favorite Scrapbook techniques…I really need to do that again!

So, Are you ready to rock your chalk? Watch the video and get started!

Stamps from our sponsor Top Flight Stamps: Rememer save 10% with coupon code thefrugalcrafter10 at top Flight Stamps and USA orders over $50 ship free!

• Jolly Holly Robins
• Christmas Postage Stamps
• Snowflake Rudolph Reindeer
• Santa’s Sleigh Ride
• Creative Expressions Holly Jolly Sentiments

Pastel/Chalk Supplies:

• Pastel Pencils
• Square chalk pastels set of 48: These are what I used in the video. I also have these and they are just as good but cheaper
• Pebbles shimmer chalk set
• Individual square decorator chalks
• Jane davenport mini pastel pans in tin
• Eyeshadow palette
• Pearl-Ex metallic powder or Perfect pearls (perfect pearls have the clear inkpad included)

Blenders *Note: Cosmetic sponges and pointed cotton swabs are way cheaper at Dollar Tree

• Foam daubers
• Cotton swabs 
• Make up wedges
• Waterbased blending pen

Other:

• Versamark pad
• Ranger Archival (waterproof ink for stamping)
• Instead of cardstock Smooth Bristol will allow more blending because it has a more robust surface.

In praise of vegetable glycerin! As you know from this very silly video I love to make my own supplies using glycerin. I use it to re-ink my embossing ink pads and to make homemade pigment ink. I also use it with water to rejuice my waterbased blending pens. It is useful in cake decorating and candy making as well as DIY beauty products. Also a little goes a long way and it is so useful! I had a viewer on YouTube ask if they could use a waterbrush instead of a waterbased blending pen for the brush technique. You can, however I recommend working on watercolor paper if you do as a waterbrush is going to give you more of a watercolor look at the extra water will pill ordinary cardstock. It is the glycerin in the blender marker that lubricates the tip of the marker and lets the media glide across the cardstock and that is why I recommend that method. If you don’t want to get a waterbased blending marker simply dip a pointed q-tip in the water/glycerin mix and use that, it will work the same. 😀

I hope you enjoyed this video. I worked really hard on it and I’d like to make more overlooked supply focus videos in the future so if you have any ideas on what supply to feature next let me know in the comments below. If you like this video I’d love it if you shared it on social media using one of the handy sharing links below. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

PS Want more chalk ideas? Here is a DIY chalk ink made from chalk pastels and how to ink up your stamps with chalk pastels. Man, are chalks useful or what?