It can have a softening effect, or it can have a highlighting effect! There are several ways you can use chalks to enhance your layouts.

1. On the edges of torn paper. When you tear your paper edges, some papers have a white core, and therefore the torn edges are white. You can chalk on these edges with coordintaing colors to add depth to frames, borders, or anything you tear.

2. On the edges of letters. Die cut letters are normally plain, but when you have chalks you can make them look distinct. By chalking just around the edges, or even using two colors and chalking the entire letter, you can create a significant perspective to your layout.

3. Highlight diecuts, paper piecings, and punchies/punchart. Plain die cuts or punch art can be made to be extraordinary with some chalking. This is as versatile as your own imagination. Paper piecings are not complete without the aid of some chalk to color in the different areas of paper and add depth to the finished work.

4. Chalking over stencils or templates to make borders or soft pictures or letters with lettering templates. This one is one of my favorites. A simple way to make a title is to chalk over letter templates on a rectangular matted paper. Beautiful borders can be stenciled in also with chalks, and you can mat them, too, for a more contemporary look.

5. Highlighting letters or words in journaling. This is a nice touch to add to your journaling to make it special. When there are certain words you would like to emphasize, you simply chalk over them (or under them if you used vellum) and they are softly highlighted!

To apply your chalks you may wish to use sponges, cotton balls, make up applicators, daubers, tiny pom pom balls, or my personal favorite: Qtips! The best thing about chalking is that it is very forgiving. By that I mean, you can fix any mistakes easily with a regular eraser! So don't be afraid! Try out those chalks, and make some eye-catching pages!

Click here to see an example of chalking on torn edges.

Click here to see an example of chalking on letters, die cuts, and frames.

Click here to see an example of highlighting your journaling with chalk.

Click here to see an example of chalking over a letter template to create a title.

You can order chalks from me by clicking here and then clicking "Pens" on the menu at the left.

Read more on Chalking.