It has been a while but well... summer.   It was difficult to be indoors blogging while the weather was so nice.

Anyway,  back to chalk paints. Here are the rest I tested in no particular order:

1. Soft Matte Fabric Paint by Tulip 

I really wanted to like this paint.  It comes in a variety of colors and is affordable if you don't need a lot of paint ( $1.79 for a 1 fl oz bottle).  It is a fabric paint and whether that makes a difference for paper uses,  I don't know.   I tested the color periwinkle.  Unfortunately,  when I created a swatch,  the coverage was a little thin and when the swatch dried it was matte but had a slight sheen.   There is nothing wrong with this but since I was looking for a true matte finish,  I was  a little disappointed.  It goes on smoothly and is pretty when applied,  but not the best choice for me as a chalk paint for paper.

The Tulip swatch is on the left.  The photo is not great but you can see the black paper showing through the paint and the slight sheen in parts of it.

 

 

2. Folk Art Home Depot Chalk

This is a matte acrylic paint that appears to be marketed for furniture painting and other crafty projects.  The coverage is a little thin.  In the photo it is the paint swatch on the lower right and you can see the black paper showing through slightly.  However,  it dried to a nice soft truly matte finish.  The color I tested was "lilac" and it is a beautiful soft dusky purple with a tint of rose.   The paints are sold for $7.99 for an 8 oz jar and are at Joanns and AC Moore and probably other craft retailers as well.

The Folk Art Chalk Home Decor paint is on the lower right.

3. Buttercream Luxe Craft Chalk Paint- Matte Finish

This is a new craft paint line and is being sold at Joann's.  It is marketed for home decor products and the product line also included stencils, wood-carved stamps, home decor items, embellishments, fabric and miscellaneous doo-dads.

The color i test is "Lavender Fields", which is  a nice soft lavender purple color.   I don't really understand the "why" behind the  buttercream line, but I like this paint.  It goes on smoothly, without streaking and gets good coverage.  With one coat, there is very little peek-through from the black paper.  The paint dries to a nice, smooth matte finish, with no sheen.   The color dries to the barest purple, with rose undertones.  It is likely that with more than one coat ( and over a white surface), the purple color will deepen in intensity.

Here is the official color swatch from Joann.com:

Here is my swatch.  The buttercream paint is the swatch in the middle on the right.:

The paint is retailing for $8.99 for a 8 oz jar at Joann. I think the price is a little steep but it is good paint with good one coat coverage, which means you will need to use less of it, so it could be worth it. 

I have some other paints to report on so will post again on this topic and include my final findings.

Thanks for reading!

Review of Chalk Finsh Paint and Matte Acrylic Paint

I know .  It has been a while since I last posted. I have had a lot I wanted to post but have not been able to find the time.  I thought I would share one project I have been working on: ultra matte finish/chalk paints.

Chalk paints are not new.  They have been a feature in the interior decorating world for a while as decorators seek to create the "shabby chic" look for their walls, furniture and home decor projects.



When applied, chalk paints give a smooth, soft, matte finish to a surface.  This finish is not to be confused with chalkboard paints, which create a chalkboard-like surface on which you can write.



I was interested in a paint that had a matte finish rather than a satin or shiny finish, which is why I started looking at chalk paint as a possible solution. However, because I wanted to use the paint in my art journal and paper projects, I wanted an acrylic paint formation, rather than a latex- based chalk paint.

There are a couple of different options in the market, ranging from $.59 to $9.99.   While I expected a range of quality in the paints the results were surprising.

ATCs created with chalk finish paint

Various brands of matte finish and chalk paints

First Place: There was a three way tie for my first place vote:

1. Chroma's Jo Sonja Artist Color Matte Flow Acrylic

Here is a description of these paints from the Chroma website:

Jo Sonja's Artists' Colours are flow formula acrylics offering the look and feel of traditional gouache. They offer superb handling and brushing characteristics together with purity and strength of colour. Acrylic gouache is a popular medium for design works on paper and decorative art, providing opacity of colour and a beautiful, matte velvet finish. Unlike traditional gouache, colour layering can be achieved easily throughout a painting, as the paints will dry within minutes.

The  color I tested is Storm Blue.  Storm blue is a muted submarine blue that is very reminiscent of Payne's Grey, one of my all-time favorite neutrals.

Why this paint ties for first:

The Jo Sonja paint went on smoothly and had fantastic coverage.  Some of the tested paints needed multiple coats in for full coverage but the Jo Sonja covered easily in one smooth coat and dried to a even, muted finish with no gaps.  The dried paint had a beautiful soft, chalky finish.  And best of all- no brush lines! The Jo Sonja paint is just perfect.

Swatch of Jo Sonja paint.  Unfortunately, my camera did not do a good job of capturing the true color.  For reference,  the swatch is painted on black cardstock.  In this photo it shows up as brown!

A 75ml tube of Jo Sonja French Blue is $2.60 at jerrysartarama.com

2. Tied for First: Blick Matte Acrylic in Blue Medium.

These paints are available from dickblick.com.  Here is what Blick has to say about them:

Blick’s opaque, matte-surface acrylics are water-based, quick-drying, and permanent, yet non-toxic and safe for everyday use.

Let me just say:  I am a fan of these paints.  They come in a wide range of colors, are affordable and most importantly, the paints do what they say they will. The coverage was not as complete as the coverage I achieved with the Jo Sonja but the paint dries to a smooth, muted finish with no brush lines.

Why this paint tied for first: great colors, easy to use, and smooth application and finish.

A 2 oz bottle is $2.14 at dickblick.com.

3. Tied for First: Americana Decor Chalky Finish

Official description: ... an ultra-matte chalk paint that requires no priming or sanding before using. The color palette includes 29 intermixable colors carefully selected with home decor trends in mind.

Why this paint ties for first: American Decor's description does not do this paint justice. This paint has amazing coverage.  I need only one coat to achieve a relatively smooth swatch, with no blotchiness or gaps.  There was a small hint of brush lines,  but not noticeably so.  The coverage was just fantastic.  Although I used only one coat of paint, it laid down a nice, thick layer of paint with even coverage.  The color I tested, Treasure was a lovely sea blue-green.

This paint retails for $8.99 for 8 fl. oz. at Michaels and Joann's.

I tested four to five other brands that did well but they did not do as  well as the three posted here.  I will post my review of the other paint brands over the next few days.

I hope these reviews you in your selection of a matte finish paint for your project!

Note:  I purchased all of the paints mentioned in this review.  My review reflects my personal opinion.

Art Journal Page- Pretty Silhouette

I LOVE this dual page spread!

It has some many great techniques and embellishments :  purple and pink paint,  paper flowers with coordinating blingy brads, Resist technique with white ink, rub ons ( butterfly), stencils, paint, masking and even embossing.  This spread looks way better in real life.  When I get around to getting a better camera, I will re-photograph it  so you may be seeing a similar post in the future!

 

Art Journal Page: Bold Flowers

This is a two page spread I created a while ago:

Supplies:  Acrylic paint, die cut flowers,  spray ink,  gesso,  paynes grey acrylic paint (1ove this color!!) stencils, rubber stamps, modeling paste, paper scraps.

Art Journal Page w/ Gelatos

I love the pink flowers on this page:
Materials: Gelatos, gesso, script rubber stamp (Hero Arts), poppy rubber stamp ( Hero Arts), postage rubber stamp, book pages, oil pastel, punchinella ( used as a stencil),

Art Journal Page: Strawberry Cake

Here is a page I recently made.  Sorry,  I did not capture the process but I thought I would share the page anyway:

 

Materials used: metallic acrylic paint, molding paste, glitter sticker, printed napkin ( cake image), rubber stamps.

Art Journal Page: Green to Red

This is the finished page:

 I tend to use a lot of cool colors in my journal.  Not by design-  my hand is always picking up the same colors, especially blue.  I have to make a conscious effort to use warm colors and that is what this journal  page is about.  This page started out with "painty waste' in green  I added read, orange and yellow acrylic paint randomly on the page.  The faint circles in the background were made by wiping off a stencil that was used on another page:

Next,  I splattered red acrylic ink, spray it with water to make and run and then let the ink drip down the page.

 

 I stamped a script stamp with black archival ink.  I wiped a portion of the page with gesso and then wiped most of it off.  I thought the page looked okay until I took a photo if it.  One I saw the photo  I realized that the white gesso was too stark, especially on the left.

I added pink neon acrylic paint for bump up the color a bit.

To tone down the look of the gesso, I stamped one of my favorite stamps- the medallion by Hero Arts- with  Ranger archival ink in Sienna.  I also used a bottle cap dipped in walnut ink spray and stamped random circles on the page.  I also rubbed on distress ink though a screen pattern stencil over the script.

To finish the page off,  I added a little shading  around the edges of the page using complementary oil pastel colors.  This  page is now ready for pictures or journaling!

Store Review: Blitsy

Have you heard of Blitsy? Blitsy is a retail website that sells craft supplies at a discount.  The web site proclaims:

Blitsy brings you the best craft supplies at up to 70% off. We are on the frontlines of the crafting industry, discovering and delivering the latest designs and trends from your favorite brands. You'll find steals on products for paper crafting, needle crafts, kids, fine arts, jewelry, and so much more!

The Good:

Blitsy has a nice selection of current items.  I was a skeptical at first.  I find that when some stores claim to sell "overstocks" at a discount, the merchandise is old, outdated or not anything you would want to purchase anyway.  Blitsy is selling current, popular items from popular manufacturers.  Recently, they  had Tim Holtz mini distress inks, Julie Nutting Prima dolls, Prima flowers, stamps and embellishments, Memory Box dies,  Bo Bunny, Basic Grey, My favorite Things, Papermania and more.   Other categories include fine art supplies including gesso and paint as well as supplies for  jewelry making, knitting and crochet, sewing, kids crafts and more.  They sell craft items you would actually want to buy, not just the leftovers.  All at less than retail prices.

Items were as promised:  When I received my order,  it was exactly as advertised and pictured on the website.  Nothing to complain about there.

Oh Blitsy,  I really wanted to like you.  I really did.  But alas,  I cannot not.  Here is why:

The Bad:

Prices are not that great: I don't know about you but I try to avoid paying retail prices for craft supplies.  Ever.  Crafting is a hobby for me so I don't like to pay a lot for items that I do not need. I am willing to pay full price for the things I must buy- like food & transportation- necessities.  ( Even with then, I tend to focus on weekly special items in the grocery store circular and try to fill up my car when the local gas station has $.05 off per gallon).  While the Blitsy site says they have craft supplies at up to 70% off,  I did not see that level of discount in the papercraft supplies I looked at.  The discounts for the papercrafting category seemed to be 15% to 30% off.   Since I avoid paying retail pricing anyway, a 30% discount when I have to pay 20% in shipping isn't much of a draw for me.

Login required, even to browse:  Retail websites that require you to set up an account and log in even to look are a personal pet peeve of mine.  Seriously,  Blitsy,  I came to your website to see if I wanted to have a relationship with you and you are demanding my name and email address before we even say "helllo"  No casual drive-by looking here. Annoying. 

Expensive shipping:  Another pet peeve is web retailers who charge excessive shipping fees.  Apparently, Blitsy is determined to make it up for its product "discounts" by overcharging on shipping.   My order cost $9.99 to ship.  I almost cancelled it when I saw the shipping cost.  This is what I ordered:

A couple of Prima doll stamps, Prima color bloom spray in berry wine( new to me and I wanted to try it) and a few colors of Viva Modeling Creme ( you can make and color your own for a lost less but I really like the colors of the Viva creme)

My order was shipped in this box:

This did not cost Blitsy $9.95 to ship.  My guestimate that actual cost to ship was $5.95

Slooooow order processing and shipping:  This is where Blitsy really lost me.  I placed my order on February 13.  I received my items on March 12.  The items ordered were not pre-order items nor did they site indicate that they were out of stock when I ordered so I don't understand how it could have possibly taken 30 days to get my order. Now in fairness to Blitsy,  on their website, in their FAQ section, under "Shipping", it says:

"Shipping times vary by product. Many of our items ship within 2-3 business days, but others can take up to 7-14 business days. Every product will have an estimated shipping date posted in the item description. Please note, your order will ship once all items are available."

I did not notice the disclaimer before I placed my order but even at an estimated 7-14 business days  for order fulfillment there is no way my items should have taken a month to arrive.  Especially for items that I could have walked into Joanns or gone to my LSS and purchased several times over in the time it took Blitsy to ship to me. 

Poor Communication: I try not to get antsy when  place an online order.  I know that there will be a lag between the time I order my items and the time they arrive, no matter how impatient I am.  However,  the wait is so much more tolerable when you know what the heck is going on.  Blitsy did not provide an order update. Not one.

Constant Emails/Spam- 

Number of emails I rececived in 30 days updating my on my orde status: 0

Number of emails I received in 30 days urging me to shop at Blitsy: 59 ( I counted)

Seriously,  Blitsy,  I don't need to hear from you that much.  At least ship my order first.

Although my order took about 3 weeks to ship, my credit card was charged immediately:  Different stores handle this differently.  Personally,  I think the most appropriate policy is to charge the card only when the item is shipped, but stores vary.  Normally, shipping delays are not significant enough for this to become an issue for me but you should NOT charge my card and then take 3 weeks  to ship.

My verdict?: The small discount off retail pricing did not make the order worthwhile especially when the slow shipping time and expensive shipping costs are factored. 

Blitsy is another entry into an already crowded retail space and they have done nothing to make me interested in ordering from them. Slow and expensive shipping for items that are minimally discounted is not a good combination for me. YMMV.

Where to shop: I prefer to support LSSs but I don't really have one. If I want to place an online order for papercrafting supplies, I will continue to use my go-to: oozak.com, which has  superfast shipping ( and free for orders over $50), great customer service and  seems to offer a standard minimum 20% discount off MSRP for most items. Oozak is great at providing order status updates by email. I have also have good results with bluemoonscrapbooking.com (great customer service and fast shipping. I ordered recently and received a telephone call to tell me that my order had shipped!) and Ellen Hutson (pricey but honorable mention here for good customer service).  Joann.com is also good for sales but are slow to update with newer products and you have to watch out for their shipping costs.

Art Journal Page: Light to Dark

This is a page I recently created using acrylic paint, stencils and stamps.  I did not have a vision for the page when I started.  I just grabbed materials as they occurred to me.

This page started off as a scrap page.  When I use a stencil and have leftover paint or ink on the stencil,  I stick it in between some blank pages of my journal.  The purple paint is "paint waste".  I added the blue using Blick matte acrylics. You can see the stencil I used in the upper left.  The foam stamp used in the next stamp is in the upper right.

I stamped the flower shapes with a foam stamp using another Blick matte acrylic.  I also added some green paint.  The page on the left is the primary page I worked on.  If I had any excess paint on the stamp or stencils I used,  I "off-stamped" on the right.

 I added text to the background with a script stamp.  So far so good. However,  In the next step, I pretty much ruin the page:

I added Golden Fluid Acrylic paint in Burnt Sienna  using a paintbrush.  I did not like the result of this step as I think I covered up too much of the blue and green, which I liked.  Fortunately, it was not the final step.

Not content to ruin it with a little Burnt Sienna,  I added some more.  At this point the page was really too dark for my taste so I lightened it by blotting on yellow acrylic paint.

I  like to combine different types of paint and ink on my pages.  Here I am preparing to add black spray paint using this numbers stencil.

This is the page after I added the spray paint on the left.  I blotted off the excess paint from the stencil on the right hand page.

Here is another photo of the final page.  I finished it by adding more black paint with the stencil.  I also stamped a circle stamp using archival ink in orange blossom.  To add more depth and texture to the page, I edged the outer borders with a pinkish red oil pastel.

Thanks for following my process!

Awesome Lenovo Technical Support !

 Photo credit: Venturturlst on Flickr. Pictured computer is not a Lenovo


I really wanted to document my art journal process via a blog in 2015 but just after I published my first blog post my computer died.  Fortunately it was still under warranty so after some initial hiccups with customer service via telephone, I was able to send it back to the manufacturer ( Lenovo) for repair.  I just received the newly repaired computer in the mail and I am ready to blog!

I have to give Lenovo major credit for the speed and transparency of their repair process.  I half expected that Lenovo would invent a reason to tell me that they necessary repair was outside the warranty but they repaired it without question. I was able to track the progress of my machine at their facility from receipt at Lenovo to repair progress update to the day it was shipped back to me.  They estimated that the computer would be shipped back to me in 7-10 days and it was shipped back to me in 10 days, exactly.  The computer works perfectly and as a bonus they even repaired the CD drive which was broken off   earlier.  Double bonus:  they even repaired it without wiping my hard-drive.


I feel that most large companies focus more about their product( regardless of whether the product actually works) and they seem to care less about making sure their customers are happy.  Apple, for example, offers abysmal service and support for most of their products unless you purchase their expensive extended warranty.  I own a Silhouette Cameo that I recently had issues with and had a less than satisfactory experience with their customer support line. (In fact, I could not ever get a live person on the phone when I called them, although they did return my call-eventually).  In contrast,  I was really impressed with Lenovo after this experience.  They did an outstanding job and made the process really painless for me, for which I am grateful.

Thanks, Lenovo!

Art Journal Page: Wanderlust- Part 1

I love to work in shades of blue, which is the way this  page started.  Somehow I ended up with greens and yellows.  I wanted this page to have an ephemeral dreaming quality that invoked hazy images of  far away places.
Base layer: Gesso, then used matte medium to adhere torn book pages.
Next layer: Wiped on orange acrylic paint and then wiped some off.  I added color using various stencils.
Final layers: Washi tape, images cut from old books and rubber stamps.