DIY How to Make Chalk Paint & Milk Paint

Making your own chalk paint and milk paint is easy and fun. I love how it gives you so much flexibility to make any color you want, plus you can play with consistency and proportions to get a paint that fits your needs perfectly! In this Instructable I'm going to go over two simple recipes that you only need a few ingredients for, all of which you can easily find online.

Step 1: DIY Chalk Paint

When making chalk paint you need a flat latex paint, and some sort of chalk component. You can either use plaster of Paris, calcium carbonate, baking soda or grout. They all act a little different, and my favorite is calcium carbonate, which is what chalk is made out of.

So, to make the paint it's really simple. Here you can kind of try different ratios, however I've found that this ratio works well:

2 parts calcium carbonate
3 parts paint

This makes a nice and thick paint, however you can always experiment and get a ration that works well for you and your project.

You can always play with layers of different colors, and sand in between to get some really cool effects. I prefer to add a wax coat to chalk paint when it's all dry to seal the paint in and bring out the color.

Step 2: DIY Milk Paint

Now, let's move on to milk paint. There are lots of ways to make milk paint, however I've found that using dry non fat milk powder along with water, pigment and a tiny amount of calcium hydroxide works well and is really easy.

1/2 cup milk powder
1 tsp pigment
1 dash calcium hydroxide
2 tbsp water

Scale up for more paint.

Now, it's important to blend this really well. When I make a large batch of this, I like to use a dedicated blender which makes it really nice and smooth, otherwise you just have to make sure you do a lot of stirring!

This paint should be used right away, or stored in the fridge, however it will thicken up as it sits, so I prefer to only mix as much paint as I need.

You definitely need to protect this milk paint, so I like to cover it with polyurethane or spray lacquer.