Spring Card - blending chalk technique

I recently brought a box from Ebay of craft room clearout items and in the box was a brand new unwrapped Blending Chalks pack. At first I was going to discard it as I have never thought of using chalks with my card making as I have vivid memories of using chalks at school and mainly getting them over clothes and only creating a chalky mess! Anyway, after my first reservations I decided that it would be worth trying them out to see if I can make a fresh looking card using some very simple techniques.

To start with I wanted to create a simple centre rectangle that I could use as both a frame and the focal part of the card. Using the Fiskars rectangle template a found the centre of my card and then using a light blue chalk to start I dabbed from the edges working into the middle. This turned out very light so then I went round the edges with the darker blue chalk.

Once I removed the stencil I had this effect:

Using the Fiskars rectangle stencil I traced the same sized rectangle onto some scrap white paper. This then became a mask to prevent ink going over the chalk area. Using my chosen stamps I then went round the outside of the frame with two different coloured inks. You will probably notice that on one side the ink wasn't quite pressed enough but this turned out to be quite a good look. Just goes to show that sometimes mistakes can work out okay!

Once I had finished stamping I just removed the scrap paper mask and the effect produced was a simple but clean looking card which just needed finishing with an embellishment.

For the embellishment I decided that I wanted to have a gift tag effect on the centre panel. All I did to create the tag was to cut a small rectangle and snip the top corners at an angle and hole punch the top for my ribbon. I stamped on a quick greeting onto the gift tag using co-ordinating ink. Rather than tying a bow I decided to keep the ribbon quite plain and just applied some glue using my glue gun to keep the ribbons in place.

Once the tag was finished it was simply a case of fixing the tag into the centre panel. I used some Liquid Pearls in White Opal to dot on each flower centre to add a bit of added interest to the card. And there you have it - my first chalk blending attempt.

I will definitely use these again but want to experiment with them a bit more to see how they can be used to create various effects. Watch this space!