Tyra Smith, Product Review, Cut 'n Dry Pads

Buzz N Magic Powdered Chalks
Author: Tyra L. Smith
(Manufacturer: Stamp N Plus Scrap N http://www.powderedchalk.com/)

I always enjoy playing with delightful products that enhance my creativity and these powdered chalk products definitely fall into that category!

These chalks offer an ease of application that can involve many different techniques and project ideas. You can easily substitute the powdered chalks for any technique that uses "chalks or chalk pastels".

There are 4 different types of powderd chalks: Powder, Dust, Metallic and Florescent with a very nice range of available colors.

The Powders and the Dust are extremely unique in the fact that they contain a binder, which means you do not have to spray the finished product with a fixative. It also allows you to create a beautiful, somewhat opaque, paint by simply adding water, or using a waterbrush. The Metallic and Florescent colors do not have a binder, so you do need to spray them with a fixative after you finish your project.

What I really like most about the powdered chalks is that the "powdered form" is much easier to work with than standard "cube or stick chalks". You can mix different colors of the powders for your own unique custom colors. They are easily mixed into a paint by adding ANY water based wet product. I have tinted the following products with Powdered Chalks with incredibly beautiful results:

1. Elmer's Glue
2. Gel Mediums
3. Acrylic Gloss Varnish Mediums
4. Glossy Accents, 3-D Lacquer, Diamond Glaze, etc....
5. Iridscent Tinting Medium
6. Pearlescent Tinting Medium
7. Water

Dove Blender Pens work beautifully with all 4 types of the Powdered Chalks and no fixative is necessary. A waterbrush (or wet paintbrush) works beautifully to create subtle washes that are more opaque than dye ink or traditional watercolors. (the more water you add, the less opaque they become). If you want a splash of "shimmer" in your chalk colors, you can add in the "Stardust" color, and you can even add in various colors of powdered mica pigments (like Pearl Ex, etc..) to create custom color with shimmer.

The powdered chalks can be brushed over polymer clay work for unique effects, spray with fixative when necessary. Chalk Popping looks extremely elegant with the Powdered Chalks. You can easily "erase" the powdered chalks for an easy subtractive technique. I was able to easily and quickly create beautiful backgrounds with the Powdered Chalks using a wide range of techniques. The manufacturer (Stamp N Plus Scrap N) has a very nice tutorial/tips section on their web site which can be found here: http://www.powderedchalk.com/gpage2.html

All in all, I am very pleased with the Buzz N Magic Powdered Chalk products. They have made me look at chalks in a whole new way!

Copyright 2006: Tyra Smith Cloud9@netnet.net
NOTE: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM BY ANY MEANS ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING OR OTHERWISE, WITHOUT FIRST OBTAINING WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.