hi there Lindsay here The Frugal crafter
I've been asked a lot about how to make
my own chalk paint so I thought today I
would experiment a bit and see if I
could come up with something that would
work for you so here is some examples of
um the chalk paint that I made here is
just the paint on its own and here is
how I turned into chalk paint so I've
got a red and you can see it turns more
to like a matte um not really a pink but
like a matte kind of I don't know Dusty
brick kind of color the Pink goes into a
nice nice pastel opaque pink the yellow
goes into a nice pastel opaque yellow
and the green which I mixed with the
green white and a little bit of yellow
to get the right color that I wanted
then it went to like that nice soft
pastel green so what I used was this
very inexpensive craft paint from
Joann's now I was kind of bummed when I
bought this I bought it for some kids
classes but it was really transparent
and the quality wasn't very good um but
it was very inexpensive it was like a
a160 or something like that regular
price for each of these um so that's
what I'm going to use now if you're
going to use more expensive paint you're
not going to need as much of the next
ingredient which is plaster of Paris and
this is very inexpensive you can get
this at any hardware store or you might
even have some around your house so what
we're going to do is um work on a on a
just some surface you can mix your paint
in you could use like um recycled
applesauce cups or um you know recycled
baby food jars whatever you have or you
could even mix right into your bottle of
paint if you had a larger project to do
but since I'm just going to kind of mix
this up and Swatch it out I'm going to
work right here on my uh my stay wet
palette so first what I want to do is
just squeeze out the some paint and I'm
not making a huge amount cuz I just want
enough to Swatch it out so I've got
probably like um oh maybe like I don't
know a teaspoon of paint maybe half a
teaspoon I'm not 100% sure there just a
little bit and this is something that's
not exact science and like I said if
you're using um you know better quality
paint you're not going to need quite so
much plaster pairs this is a quite a
thin craft paint so I'm just getting out
some colors some basic colors
here and let's do this green why don't I
um I could do this actually without any
white and we can see the colors that it
makes just on its own and so then what I
want to do I'm just going to wipe off
this pallet knife here I find a pallet
knife is really good for scooping out
the plaster Paris it's um I would say
like if that's how much paint I have I
would say you have probably a quarter of
the amount of plaster parot
to the amount of paint you have that's
probably a little much so I might need
to add a little more paint to that so
it's about quarter of the amount of plas
pair so if you had like a 4 oz bottle of
paint you could pour out a quarter of
that and then fill it with plaster pairs
just make sure you have enough room that
you can like shake it up but I'm going
to use this pallet knife for mixing
since um you know since I'm just making
up a little bit here on the palette so
you need to pay attention to the
consistency of the paint and that's the
same whether you're you know shaking it
in a bottle and mixing it that way so if
you're doing this in a bottle what I
think I would recommend is adding a
little bit of plaster Paris and then
seeing how like how that dissolves into
the paint and if it still looks really
thin you can add a little bit more like
I think that could take a little bit
more I'm just going to scrape some of
that extra over since I knew the purple
had too
much and you want to make sure you get
kind of like a um kind of like a a
mayonnaise consistency I guess is what I
call or if mustard in this case cuz it's
yellow but you know you want kind of
that
consistency and you don't want to see
any chunky bits it shouldn't look
gritty you want to be nice and smooth
all right I'm just going to wipe off my
palette knife and go over to the green
because you know yellow's an ingredient
green I'm not you know this is close
enough I'm not this is just something
I'm going to Swatch out on a piece of
scrap cardboard in a second like that
dissolved really quick so I feel like I
could do a little bit
more plaster in there
it's basically a one4 plaster of Paris
um to 3/4
paint for like and I would recommend
using the craft paint or even some house
paint over using the uh heavy bodied
artist quality paint there that's got a
pretty good consistency there I'm going
to wipe off my palette knife go to the
next
color maybe I'll go over to Pink
here you just keep mixing it
up like this is just about right you
know know it it's not dissolving right
away I have to work at it a little bit
but it's not remaining really
chunky and I would test out a little bit
before you commit a whole bottle to it
so if like you're wondering how this is
going to look and you're considering
painting like a bureau or something I
would definitely make a small amount
first and then go if you like it go to
the bigger one now this is the one that
I said remember I said I put too much I
dropped too much in there you can see
when you have too much in there look
what it does it just kind of like it's
almost like work a dough trying to get
you know a dough mixed up or some heavy
icing plus I think I've got some dried
paint on my palette underneath there so
see you've got this kind of more of like
a heavy paste there so if you get that
it's not a big
deal just add another drop of
paint that's that might even be too much
paint but we'll mix that in we'll
see and then by swatching it out on
something that's colored like um piece
of cardboard or you know something
that's got a coat of paint on it you'll
be able to see how opaque it
is all right do that last color This is
highly entertaining isn't it oh my
goodness 5 minutes into the video we're
still mixing
paint
wow pin it on Pinterest people pin it on
Pinterest thumbs up if you like homemade
art supplies I do all right that one
even looks to me like it could take a
little bit more see how quickly it
dissolved but I think if you see me
mixing this it's going to you're going
to it's going to be the next best thing
to actually trying it yourself and
figuring out what you need cuz if you're
like oh that's too thin when you go to
mix yours you'll be like oh yeah when
Lindsay look like this she added a
little bit more so you'll have that
information the thing to remember
everything looks nice and Vivid and
bright right here but let me just show
you that red is going to dry that color
okay that pink is going to dry that
color so there's going to be a a severe
shift lighter when these dry all right
I'm going to pause it and grab a scrap
of cardboard
okay so I just grabbed like the flap off
of a box here and know wied fancy huh um
and I'm just going to brush out the
paint on its own now that was the paint
right from the tube okay I don't know if
you can really tell but it's very thin
okay then I'm just going to grab some of
the the homemade paint that we just did
that same color so already you can see
how much the um the plaster has made
that lighter and more opaque you can see
how you can really see the uh the
texture of the cardboard through there
so what I'm going to do here is just um
go through with each color and Swatch it
out so you can see how it changes so
this is this is a really good situation
or solution for me because I bought this
paint and I was very disappointed in how
um in how transparent and watery it was
but now I'm able to you put it or put it
in a way that I could use it so you
could see how much more opaque that
green is again I'm just I'm just
cleaning my brush off in between um also
it's a good idea to dry your brush off
before you go into paint like when
you're painting and you rinse your brush
off always dry it off before you go in
otherwise you dilute your paint a lot
look how thin and watery that yellow is
I almost feel like I need to scrape some
of that off all right now I'm just going
to pick up some of
that yellow that's also still a little
watery it might need a little white but
it's still heck of a lot better than it
was
originally I'm not sure if I'm crazy
about Chalk Paint I mean I certainly
like this better than how that paint was
originally but it does kind of gives me
that well gives you that fingernails on
a chalkboard feeling you know that heie
jebi I don't like the feel of that paint
like when I touch it after it dries it
just feels so well chalky um there
that's a big Improvement um but I know
it's really popular and I think you
could actually make your own chalkboard
walls like if you want to paint an area
of your wall with this you could use it
for a chalkboard which is kind of cool
um and we'll do this red one
here again this is really watery so if
you have like Delta saram coat or folk
art or Americana one of those finer
craft paints um You probably won't need
so much because it's already going to be
more opaque but you know play it by ear
you just want to make sure that you
avoid the
chunks all right now I am going to let
this dry and we're going to come back
and look at it again but before I do
that I'm just going to set it right
there I got my space heater on cuz it's
very cold so I'm just going to set it
underneath my uh my desk where my space
heater is um but I wanted to show you
these because I'm actually going to be
using these in a tutorial in a day or
two um I just really like the way it
looks but I can show I can kind of go
through and tell you what ones came out
better and what ones came out worse so
like if I look here I can kind of see
where I didn't mix it up very well and
I've got these little bumps you don't
want that you want to make sure you mix
it up really well before you go to brush
it on I think I had attempted to mix it
with my brush instead of my pette knife
and I got that um I think the red came
out pretty well that's nice uniform flat
finish um if you were going to use this
for a chalkboard I think I would paint
it on like a a scrap of plywood I would
give it one coat with the brush Strokes
going this way then I do a coat with the
brush Strokes going this way or
horizontally then I do another vertical
one and I would let it probably cure for
a week or so just to be on the safe side
and then I think you'd have a really
nice chalkboard surface you could do
that with black or green and be
traditional or whatever color you want
um and if I think if you wanted to
emulate more of like a milk paint look
if you rubbed this with like maybe a
hunk of wax you get that subtle Sheen or
maybe if you rubbed it with a little
cabinet wax or bush well it's not called
cabinet wax that's the wax paper stuff
but like some some sort of finishing wax
I think that would give you that kind of
casin paint look which is also kind of
popular with traditional um traditional
finishes I'm going to pause this I'm
going to just dry let that dry and then
I'm going to show you how our paint
turned out at the
end okay now we can see the complete
shift from wet to dry and you can see
that our Chalk Paints are really opaque
and bright and pastely just really rich
colors very eastery I love it and the
traditional acrylic paint paint which
like I said were was a very low quality
um and I hate to say low quality I mean
it's definitely like kind of a low-end
craft paint um that I got at Joann's but
it's fine for this purpose I don't want
to like I mean it is what it is it's
it's cheap paint I don't don't hate me
if you love that paint it's just not
it's not it's worth every penny I paid
for it but not a scent more um so you
can see how I have a much nicer finish
and opacity to the um homemade chalk
paint so I wanted to try something else
I thought wouldn't it be cool to try
actually writing on these so I grabbed a
stick of white chalk and I thought I
would do this on my first prototype that
you know um but look at that you could
totally erate on that isn't that fun I
don't know how well it would erase
because I um I just painted this like an
hour ago so it might not have cured
enough but um maybe I'll just oh yeah
look at that you could totally erase
that oh my gosh okay Game Changer my
life has changed I'm totally going to
play with this idea some more but I
wanted to share that with you I hope you
find it um useful please give me a
thumbs up and sub subscribe if you like
this tutorial and share it with your
friends so they don't go waste all kinds
of money on Chalk Paint they can make it
themselves um thank you so much for
watching until next time happy crafting