Remember the scene...

You may remember me mentioning that we were off to see the stage show of Mary Poppins a while back. Well see it we did and let me tell you, we are now more than slightly Mary Poppins obsessed. The musical was great, the DVD has taken up permanent residence in the player, and tunes are playing on small IPods. 

My favourite scene in the movie is when they step through the chalk drawings. We have just read that chapter in the first novel, and I love it. I had no idea that it was actually a whole series of books (eight in fact) that were written by P.L. Travers, not just the one. 

So deep in the recesses of my mind,  I remembered making chalk, many, many moons ago. Then I remembered I had a bucket of plaster lurking somewhere and tempera paints too.

And that is all you need.

Mix 1 cup of plaster to 3/4 cup of plaster, then stir through your colour.

I would really, really recommend using disposable tubs for this. I had some old plastic containers left over from a takeaway that were perfect. Believe me, it sets fast and hard, you really don't want to deal with this once it has dried. 

For the same reason, don't be tempted to make a larger batch. You have to work at a fairly quick pace to get this mixed and in the moulds before it sets.

I used rubber moulds from Ikea. They are easy to remove the set chalk from, easy to clean, and they were just the right shape.

Fill each mould, tap to remove any air bubbles, and smooth the surface over.

This is messy. Very messy, and you need to be really careful not to get that powder everywhere.

Let them slowly dry in the mould for up to 24 hours before removing. That's the hard bit. They may well look dry much sooner, but trust me, if you remove them too soon, they will just crumble.

Ta da. Chalk!