When Chalk Ink® markers first launched about 20 years ago, chalkboard paint was everywhere. Martha Stewart had one. Every paint brand had their version. But here's what most people don't realize about those paints: they're basically just black paint with really good marketing. There's no special formula that makes it better for chalk. Chalk is chalky and dusty, it sits on the surface, and you can wipe it off with a wet rag. Simple.

But that's exactly the problem when you're working with Chalk Ink® markers instead of actual chalk. I kept running into this issue with my design friends and retail clients. We'd be building out a bar or a coffee shop, and they'd want the menu on the wall, painted with chalkboard paint so they could update it easily with our markers, such as a Broad Tip White 15mm or Mini Max 8mm. Except the paint would be too porous, the ink would soak right in, and you couldn't get it off without destroying the whole thing. Nobody wants a permanent menu written in what's supposed to be erasable ink. That defeats the entire purpose.

This was happening enough that I knew we needed to solve it. People were painting kitchens and playrooms, sure, but I'm talking about high-end design projects, restaurants, boutiques, places where the aesthetic really matters. So I decided we needed to create our own line of Chalkboard Paint that actually worked with our markers.

I went all over the country meeting with different paint manufacturers. I even took my son with me to Portland to check out one company up there. Nothing was working. The formulas weren't right, the surfaces weren't cooperating, and I was starting to wonder if this was even possible. Finally, I walked into my local Sherwin-Williams and just started buying their most expensive paint, the highest-end stuff they had on the shelf. I brought it back and started experimenting, mixing different combinations, testing surfaces, and eventually we figured it out. This particular blend created an amazing coating on the sheetrock that sealed it just enough. When you used our markers on it, the ink dried matte, just like chalk would, but you could wipe the marker right off without taking the paint with it. We were onto something.

Anilyn, who does all of our artwork and has been one of my best friends for years – we've been in this business together forever – she and I flew to Cleveland and met with the Sherwin-Williams team. We developed the paint together, created fabulous packaging, and got it ready to sell. It's been available on our website and in our office, and we're getting ready to add it to our Amazon store. 

What's interesting is the paint wasn't the only product Sherwin-Williams manufactured for us. They also created a specialty cleaner that we marketed in this old fashioned spray can design, the Chalk Ink® Cleaner, along with a spray paint version of our chalkboard paint. Three SKUs total: the paint, the cleaner, and the spray paint. All of these are heading to Amazon, and we're still figuring out what the demand looks like and whether we'll be reordering, but having Sherwin-Williams as our manufacturing partner for this range of products showed us early on that they understood what we were trying to build.

Recently we added the Sherwin-Williams logo to the paint page on our site, which made sense because they made it for us. But then their attorney called. They saw the logo and wanted to know why we were using it. We explained that they'd manufactured this paint for us years ago, and there was this pause on the phone, and then they said, wait, why aren't we carrying your paint in our stores?  

That's when it clicked for all of us. Sherwin-Williams has been incredible about supporting women-owned businesses, and here we are, already a vendor, but we've never had the markers in their stores. They have something like 5,000 locations. Imagine our paint and a pack of markers, like the 6mm Classic 8 Pack, sitting right next to the paint on the shelf. We're excited about the partnership possibilities.

The timing is wild because suddenly our paint is selling really well, and we haven't even done any real marketing for it on Amazon yet. I'm hoping we'll be ordering a lot more paint from Sherwin-Williams soon, and maybe we can even put their brand more prominently on our packaging. I'm looking at the can right now, and they did all the technical text and the safety language for us, which was huge.

When they first reached out, it had been so long that they didn't remember working with us, which is fair. But now I'm ready to gear up that relationship again. We want to launch more products with them. I've been thinking about a line called Street by Chalk Ink®, where you could do large-scale artwork on pavement and streets, made with environmental paint products that aren't permanent. Over a couple of weeks, with just normal wear and tear and rain, it would slowly fade and evaporate. Public art that's temporary by design. That feels like something Sherwin-Williams would be perfect for.

What I love about this whole story is that it started with a problem I couldn't solve on my own, and it turned into a partnership with a company that cares about getting the details right. We made something that works the way it's supposed to work, which sounds basic but is surprisingly rare. And now, years later, we're circling back to figure out how much bigger this could be.

You can find the paint on our website now, and with any luck, we'll be expanding distribution significantly in the coming months. This product represents everything we're about at Chalk Ink: solving real problems for designers and businesses who need tools that actually perform. We didn't settle for good enough. We kept testing and refining until we created something that delivers on its promise, and that's what makes this partnership with Sherwin-Williams so exciting as we look ahead.