Scrapbooking With Chalks
Those
of you who have been rubber stamping for a while are way ahead of most scrapbookers when it comes to using chalks. Only recently have chalks, sometimes
called pastels, been introduced to scrapbooking. However, once you try them, you
are sure to love them. This fairly inexpensive embellishing tool will allow you
to turn boring, flat die-cut shapes into works of art with depth and personality
in seconds. The versatility of chalks makes them useful for a wide range of
scrapbooking projects. You can color-in stamping, shade die-cuts, highlight creative lettering, or make your own beautiful background papers. The
chalks that you will want to use are acid-free and created for quality paper
craft projects. They are available from several manufacturers and range in price
from $12-$20 for an entire set of colors. In this article, I will detail the
"How To's" involved in creating the samples that I have pictured,
provide you with some valuable tips and techniques for using chalks, list
chalking related web resources.
The samples created on this page and on the next were created using Pastels from Stampin' Up. The cotton candy background was achieved using cotton balls to get a very fluffy, soft look with the chalks. I focused on not having straight lines or defined areas of color. The wonderful letters that are used to create the title "Cotton Candy" are from Little Darlings. I absolutely love their die-cut letters and will be showing more of them on my site. They come in packages of 130 pieces for $7.50. They are available directly from their web site and shipping is free. I have highlighted the letters using my Zig opaque white marker. I then used the same colors but in a deeper tone on the cotton candy die-cut to show you the dark shading that you can achieve when you use the chalks with a heavier hand.
More detailed shading can be achieved with the highly technical device the cotton swab. (That's Q-tip to those of you for whom a tissue is a Kleenex and a copy is a Xerox.) This allows you to place the colors fairly specifically on the die-cut as in the case of the ice cream sundae. I used the cotton ball to shade the entire cup a light blue and then went back over it with a swab to shade in darker blue contour lines. The turtle has been done the same way, following the shape of the shell with the color.
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