ocean life Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Sidewalk chalk paint is simple to make. It is one of those easy recipes with only a few ingredients. Once the paint is made, it will last for a long time. We made small batches of a variety of colors and have had it for over a week.

Let me walk you through a few easy recipes for sidewalk chalk paint and then show you three ways that we painted with it.

Easy Recipes for Sidewalk Chalk Paint

Basic Recipe

Supplies

Cray24CT Sidewalk Chalk ( I really like Crayola’s sidewalk chalk. A link to the chalk I used is included for your convenience)

Hammer

Water

Plastic bag with zipper

Towel

Old muffin tin

Paint Brushes

Directions

Place a stick of sidewalk chalk in a zipper bag. Make sure it is zipped closed.

Fold a towel around the bag so that the bag is covered on the top and the bottom

Crush the sidewalk chalk with the hammer literally by hammering the chalk. The towel around the bag keeps the bag from getting holes in it and the chalk from flying out. Hint: We hammered the chalk on the garage floor. I think concrete floors are easiest to pound on.

Place the chalk crushed into a fine powder into a small container or as we did into a muffin tin cup.

If you are creating more than one color, you can repeat the steps above. If you are only making one color you are ready to move to the next step.

Add a little water to the crushed chalk at a time. Stir in that small amount of water. If it doesn’t look like paint yet, add a little more and stir. It is easier to add a little at a time then it is to try to paint with really watered down paint.

Now you are ready to paint.

Sidewalk Chalk Paint for Paper

If you would like to create sidewalk chalk to paint on paper with, you will follow the recipe above and add one ingredient. The one ingredient you need to add is glue. Without glue added to the paint recipe the paint will dry and flake off. If you add about a teaspoon of glue, the paint will stick to the paper. It did at my house.

Sidewalk Chalk Project Ideas

Fish in a Fish Bowl

I drew a giant fishbowl on our driveway with chalk. JDaniel then painted fish in the bowl. It was fun to see the fun fish he created. By creating a painting idea starter, he was able to come up with really cool creatures to fill the work space.
Paper Fish for a Fish Bowl

We used the sidewalk paint with glue added to paint paper bag fish. After painting our fish, we took them outside so that I could take a picture of them in the bowl in the driveway. The fish were later brought inside and hung up. You could easily create a large paper fish bowl on your fridge to hang your fish on.

Free Exploration

We have kept the muffin tin container filled with sidewalk paint in the garage. JDaniel added a little water when it has started to dry out and then picked spot in the garage or on the driveway to paint. He has made a wide variety of paintings including a bear during this unplanned painting time.

There are so many ways to use these easy recipes for sidewalk chalk paint. I bet you can come up with so really fun and cool crafts for your children to do with them.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post.

When we were invited stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in Downtown Atlanta for a night and to spend the next day exploring the Georgia Aquarium, we jumped at the chance. I have been dying to take JDaniel to the Georgia Aquarium since it first opened. We had decided to wait until he was old enough to appreciate it. After seeing how much children of all ages loved the aquarium, I think we could have taken him when he was much younger.

We headed down on a Friday from Greenville, South Carolina. It wasn’t that long of a trip and the traffic wasn’t bad all. We live not to far off Interstate 85 and Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta Downtown is right off of Interstate 85 which made is super easy to find.

After a quick dinner, JDaniel was dying to jump into one of the two pools at the Hilton Garden Inn. (He had all kinds of energy stored up from the car ride.) We took a few moments to look at the outdoor pool and its wonderful view of the Downtown Atlanta skyline. Then we headed into indoor pool located right next to the outdoor pool. JDaniel was thrilled to find that it had water dumping buckets. Can you guess who wanted one of those buckets to spill on me? Can you guess who was tall enough to lift the buckets to aid in dumping the water?

When we went back to our room after our swim, we noticed that we could look just across the street and see the Georgia Aquarium. It was so cool to know that it was just seconds away from us. All that we all needed to do was get a good night’s sleep.

After a wonderful night at the Hilton Garden Inn, we headed over to the Georgia Aquarium. The wonderful Bailey Rogers met us near the whale shark area to give us a behind the scene tour. What a treat is was to see the whale sharks circling rubber boats to be scoop fed! We were also able to see other marine animals come the edge of the pool to be fed when their assigned color was displayed. I didn’t realize that they could do that. What a lesson in patience they displayed! Each had to keep their eyes open and come when it was their turn.

We could have watched this all morning. It really was fascinating to see!

It was also fascinating to see the white beluga whales swimming at the top of their tank. They glided effortlessly through the water. JDaniel loved getting to touch some of the sea creatures in a tank area and watch the penguins while we were on the tour.

It was hard to leave Bailey behind after such a wonderful tour, but we needed to head down the main exhibit floor and explore. We all found it just as fascinating. The huge windows displaying the tanks gave us amazing views of all kinds of marine creatures. The layout of the Georgia Aquarium made it easy to flow from one exhibit to next just as the water flowed around the huge tanks.

After completing a few exhibits, JDaniel found an indoor climbing area and boat where we could pretend to be boat captains. I just love that the designers of the aquarium thought about including areas like this for children.

I think JDaniel’s favorite things about the Georgia Aquarium were the jellyfish and the free Dolphin Tales show. (The dolphin show is really amazing. It combines music, water acrobatics, and amazing lighting.) My husband’s favorite area was Sea Monsters Revealed Aquatic Bodies. The interiors of various plastinated sea creatures are on display in this exhibit . It was truly amazing to see how intricate each creature’s body was. I love getting to see the beluga whales and the penguins. Watching both behind the scene and in front of their huge tank areas was really wonderful.

Have you been thinking about going to the Georgia Aquarium? I want to let you know about a special Southern Hospitality Discount that just started at the Georgia Aquarium. Residents of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida can receive discounted admission of $29.95 +tax when they show a valid ID verifying residency at the ticket window only. This special deal will run June 13th.

A Couple of Georgia Aquarium Visit Hints:

The cafeteria serves delicious food, but it is expensive. My husband and JDaniel didn’t eat a big breakfast at the hotel and were starving by lunch time. I ate a huge breakfast at the Hilton Garden Inn and wasn’t hungry at lunch time. Eating a large breakfast or having a snack in Centennial Park right across the street from the Georgia Aquarium may curb the need for a large meal.
Head to the Aquarium early. We were able to move easily see the animals before a lot of families had arrived by arriving early.
Pick up your Dolphin Tales tickets early and plan your visits to the exhibits around your show time.

If you do decide to make the trip to the Georgia Aquarium, my family and I would definitely recommend that you stay at the Hilton Garden Inn. We loved its proximity to the aquarium and to Centennial Park! There were also a number of restaurants in walking distance at a variety of price points for dinner.

Disclaimer: Our hotel stay along with our tickets to the Georgia Aquarium were all given to us in exchange for my writing this post.