Chalkboard art is quite popular right now. I’m sure you’ve seen a thing or two that lately that has the chalkboard look. I’ve got a couple of ideas for you today.
- We’ll use a punch to create a stencil.
- We’ll create a chalkboard look for a scrapbook page.
Here is more mileage we can get from that same heart punch that we’ve used for several ideas. You can use most any punch for a stencil. You’ll need:
- Black paper for your background
- Your punch
- Paper to punch and make your stencil
- White Ink – a pigment ink will allow you to smear it well
- Sponge for applying your ink
- A white (or silver) pencil or pen for the detail work
- I first drew in simple lines that ran between the hearts.
- Next I drew a second line and just ran back and forth over the first one. It creates kind of a ribbon look.
- Then I just added some curls at the ends of my lines.
- I then added dots on my “ribbon” and at the end of the little curlicues.
Now you’ll want to make the black paper look a little more chalky so that it looks like it has been erased a few time. Two options I like are:
- Lightly sponge on more white ink, using the sponge almost dry so that you don’t get too much. You can always add more, but it’s hard to remove it!
- You can use an Embossing Buddy, which is meant to be used on the surface of your project before using embossing powder. It has a slightly powdery effect which will make sure you don’t have static and have embossing powder clinging where you don’t want to emboss. Rubbing it across your black paper gives it that “chalky” appearance. However, it is still kind of powdery, so if you are using this technique on a scrapbook page, you may want to select the inking technique.
At this point I added a photo to the page and added more doodles around it. Then I added a title, and even more doodles. Then I decided I needed some more hearts, so I stenciled in a few more hearts. Okay, I may have gone overboard, but it’s a fun page, and I enjoyed doing it! I got a cute picture on a page, and I enjoyed myself!
Loosen up and try your hand at something new. My page isn’t perfect, but I don’t care. In case you haven’t noticed, there are people who are enjoying quite a following creating art that isn’t perfect. Is is NOT about the perfect! I hope you’ll give the chalkboard technique a try and you are always welcome to share your work with us over at the Artful Adventures Facebook Group!
Last, but not least, here is another page I made that has a similar look. This page was done with the February sketch layout from my friend Beth at ScrappingWonders.com.
After getting that done, I decided to use it for today’s scrapbook page for the Layout A Day (LOAD) challenge this month. Why start from scratch when I already had that much done! I added the little doodled looking border, (if you know who this designer is, please let me know!) A “heart punch” photo of the two of us, and some journaling on the side.
Keeping an open mind to what you can use a punch for, made quick work in creating my February Art Journal calendar in a bit of both scrapbook and art journal style. Making things more artful isn’t hard!
