How to Make Concrete Sidewalk Glitter Chalk

Make your own sidewalk chalk and add glitter.

It's almost a right of passage for a child to make chalk drawings on concrete sidewalks. And if there are no sidewalks around, there's always the concrete garage floor or the basement floor. You can buy sidewalk chalk at the store, but you can easily make your own for pennies. Let kids make their own choosing their own colors and pumping up the effect of their custom-made sidewalk chalk by adding glitter to the mixture. The glitter makes any outdoor chalk drawing dazzle on a bright sunny day.

Things You'll Need

• Cardboard toilet paper roll
• Shoe box lid
• Wax paper
• Plastic bowl and spoon
• Measuring cup
• Plaster of Paris
• Water
• Tempera paint
• Glitter

Instructions

1. Take a cardboard toilet paper roll and set it on end in a shoe box lid lined with wax paper.

2. Pour 1 cup of plaster of Paris in a plastic bowl. Add tempera paint, wet or powdered and mix it into the dry plaster. Add more paint and mix until a good concentration of color is developed.

3. Add glitter to the mixture. Again, the amount is determined by personal preference.

4. Add a cup of water and mix it together with the dry ingredients. Don't take more than a minute to mix everything together. The longer plaster of Paris is stirred, the faster it hardens.

5. Lift up the plastic bowl and tap the bottom on the edge of a counter or table. This causes trapped air bubbles in the wet mixture to come to the surface.

6. Pour the wet plaster mixture into the empty cardboard tube. Let it set up for 24 hours before peeling the cardboard tube away from the side of the glitter chalk.

Tips & Warnings

• Consider brushing the inside of the cardboard tube with vegetable oil so the dry plaster won't stick to the walls.

• Homemade sidewalk chalks make fun kid's birthday gifts.

• Don't rinse leftover plaster down the kitchen drain, you'll end up with a clogged drain.

References

• Bliss Tree: Glittery Sidewalk Chalk Recipe