Patching and Plastering - plaster ceiling fix

I am going to spackle a small (6" longx2"wide) area of the textured ceiling and don't know how much to thin out the spackle I bought at the local box store. Can you give me an idea? Thanks

Spackle? You shouldn't need to thin out spackle. You'll have to explain why you think you need to. Thinning it will destroy the little body spackle has to begin with.

While joint compound can be thinned, spackling can not. Spackling is only suitable for minor repairs. Exactly what is it your are repairing? What type of texture? To complete the repair you will need to duplicate the texture.

Should I use joint compound instead of spackle on the textured ceiling? I am only filling in a scrape on the ceiling; The guy at the box store also advised spackle when I described to him what I needed to do. (for whatever his opinion is worth)

-The house is about 7 years old and my best ceiling description is that it is drywall nailed up and covered with textured joint compound.

Spackling is fine for filling minor scrapes and dings. Without having the luxury of seeing your area to repair I would think spackling would be ok. However you won't be able to use it to texture the repair - which will need to be done to hide the repair.

I have several small scrapes on the ceiling so thanks for the advice Marks.
Based on what I've been told I tried joint compound on one of the smaller areas and matched the texture using a brush, and now that that spot is dry I see the color doesn't match the rest of the (original) ceiling. I thought that the ceiling finish was just textured joint compound originally...do I need to paint the entire ceiling now for uniform color?
Thanks