With bold, beautiful shapes in a wide range of delicious pastel colours, Chalkies sidewalk chalk provides hours of creative fun and entertainment for kids of all ages. We recently caught up with the Ballito-based founders, Nahtalie and Christa.
Like so many lovely, homegrown businesses, Chalkies was born in a time when the world was ‘locked in’ and surrounded by way too much doom and gloom.
Determined to bring a little colour and happiness to the lives of the people around them, Ballito partners Nahtalie Pautz and Christa Koekemoer came up with the idea of making colourful sidewalk chalk in a variety of fun shapes.
From yummy-looking doughnuts and drizzled ice cream sticks, to dinosaurs, insects and butterflies, their beautiful, non-toxic creations have become popular party favours and birthday gifts for boys and girls alike.
Mother of two Nahtalie, who is originally from Klerksdorp, studied child psychology and has worked in both education and early childhood development. She runs a popular mobile car wash business within the Ballito estate she lives in and has two daughters, aged 11 and 7. Personal trainer Christa is originally from KZN and has a Master’s degree in exercise.
“When Covid hit we started brainstorming ideas. We were looking for something else to generate income, but also wanted to bring fun, colour and smiles to our community,” says Christa, who came up with the idea of making sidewalk chalk after seeing a post about it on social media.
After a few failed attempts, she and Nahtalie started doing intense research and, after much trial-and-error, found a recipe that worked. “We had to find the right moulds and soon realised we would need a dehumidifier as well to combat the KZN humidity,” says Nahtalie.
They ‘kicked off’ their project by hosting a sidewalk chalk competition in their estate during one of the Covid waves. They were blown away by the response. “It was amazing to see everyone’s driveways covered in beautiful designs with meaningful sayings and images. It created such a happy, colourful vibe in our community … and that’s exactly what we were hoping for,” says Christa.
The Chalkies brand and website officially launched in September last year, and their first big event was the Christmas Country Fair at Collisheen Estate where, Nahtalie says, they received lots of positive feedback. “It’s incredible to see how people react to our products. They always have big smiles and tell us that the chalk looks ‘good enough to eat’. It also seems to bring back happy childhood memories for many adults.”
Now Nahtalie and Christa’s garage is a colouful factory of fun and their products are available at a number of outlets around KZN, including Lifestyle Spar and House of Mangar in Ballito (as well as on their website). They range from R95 to R250 a set.
Apart from encouraging kids to be creative and spend time outdoors, there are loads of other benefits, including both fine and gross motor skill-related, from playing with sidewalk chalk, including:
BENEFITS OF PLAYING WITH SIDEWALK CHALK
• Free-form creativity: allows children to think ‘outside the box’
• Encourages outdoor play: numerous benefits to minds, bodies and spirits
• Improves gross motor skills: hopscotch and jumping onto lily pads get their bodies moving!
• Improves fine motor skills: little fingers grasping the chalk while practising control and manipulation, as well as developing small hand muscles
• Educational: colour sorting, numbers and letters
• Sensory experience: the feeling of the chalk scraping on the tar provides great sensory feedback for little fingers
Details: www.chalkies.co.za, 084 238 1982, @chalkiesza
WIN:
We’ve got two Chalkies hampers to give away! Find this post on our social media platforms (@GetItMangNC) and follow the prompts to enter. Good luck!
Details: www.chalkies.co.za, 084 238 1982, @chalkiesza
Photo credits:
@being_maddie_and_charlies_mom
Nat Scheepers Creative
Text: Leah Shone
