Are you inspired? Sometimes I’m driving down the road and I see a beautiful place and I imagine myself taking photographs in that place. It may be the sun-setting (or rising) that inspires me…a feeling that rises in my gut. I can FEEL this emotion come over me and I have to draw something before I forget that feeling. I have all these photographs going through my head as though they are memories but they are NOT memories because they haven’t happened yet! It’s like I am dreaming! I have to be so careful because I’m driving….LOL. I have to pull over and draw, or write these “feelings.” I try to carry a pad of paper, a sketch book, and my camera. If I have only one of these in the car at any given moment I’m usually good, but this isn’t always the case. Trying to get this feeling out of my body and my head as soon as I can is generally the best thing I can do for myself or the emotion is LOST and I will forget this powerful, inspirational moment.
On this day I stopped and took this photograph. I KNEW I was going to take my children pics this day! It was SO pretty here. It was the perfect photo area. I NEEDED to bring my kids here! The leaves were in color, the sun was pretty…I was INSPIRED. It was GO TIME!!!I drove home to pick up the kids, the dog jumped in the car like he was saying ME TOO! Shelby had on her Super hero cape and we were off.My beautiful Girls
In that moment I nailed a shot of my girls. I am not a pro-photographer by any means, but in that moment I got it. I took that moment of inspiration of fresh fall air and the beautiful setting and went with it! My kids will not be young forever but taking that feeling and running with it was just what I needed. Even if it means PULLING THE CAR OVER!
Do you ever feel like this? What causes you to feel inspired? Everyone needs inspiration! I have to have inspiration for my sewing and designing business too!
My children are always my biggest inspiration, to be the best, to create my best….but when it comes to inspiring surroundings sometimes an inspirational moment just HAPPENS. Sometimes it is not even a place…it could be my children laughing and playing, or a supermodel on television. She would have to be wearing something that makes me want to sew something fabulous of course. I could be shopping in the mall and see something fantastic and feel inspired!
Yesterday I HAD to purchase this very cute little babydoll top because it inspired me SEW much. I couldn’t take a picture of it. I want to make more of them. I would never copy something to the “T” but I want to create something similar it is so pretty. In fact I had sketched something similar in my sketchbook the other day which is why I snatched it off the clothing rack. I thought this was quite funny. It called to me!
I started an “INSPIRE” book….Check it out…
In addition to my regular sketch book….
I always find myself tearing pictures out of magazines and silly ads that come in the mail. I have a hard time throwing out magazines if they have just a few things in them I want to remember. I currently have an “Inspire wall” (it’s really a bulletin board) I am always changing up in my sewing room. *** This is my wall…
I like to surround myself with items that inspire me to keep me feeling in the mood to sew and get me thinking about what is next. Especially when I hit that frustrating moment— it is really nice to have a place to turn to for inspiration.
So my Inspire book. It’s just a sketch book with some random magazine cut outs of things that made me say OOOOh. Fashion items that might have a detail or two that I loved.
There are actually a few things in there that I look at now and say, why on earth did I put that in there? (not the hat, I REALLY love this style!) But I take a second glance and think– oh, I think I must have just liked the fabric choice on that design, or the hemline on that one, or the seam detail on this one. Whatever the reason, it inspired me that day and I stuck it in the book.
And a Monet print, just because it’s Monet….so why not! I love impressionists! Monet is inspirational too!
Do you have an Inspire wall? Or an Inspire book? Where do you turn for inspiration? Lets hear it!
I challenge you to make an Inspire book if you don’t have one!
Beautiful. I think this is one of the prettiest things I have ever made….MY SHELBY of course! (one of my two beautiful daughters!) Ok, ok so now you know what I’m getting at— here is the Coffee Shop Lace Dress by Bella Sunshine Designs. Today this popped up in my Facebook feed as the one year anniversary of taking this photo. Don’t you just love when Facebook shares your memories with you? Sometimes they are just “Plain Jane”..and sometimes I just want to cry because I melt over my babies! This photo I just OOOGLE OVER! It is by far my favorite BSD pattern! I remember when I took this photo, and every time I just stare at this pic of my daughter — I sigh — ahhhhhhhmazing. I’m so proud of this AHHHH moment! The dress, the photo, the sunset….MY GIRL! Sorry…I’m just in AWE…E-V-E-R-Y time……Just a mom I guess. 🙂
This was an amazing evening. Shelby had so much fun with this photo shoot. She was like a little super model!
If you don’t own this pattern yet….You need to! I will be making more of these for back to school as she will be starting kindergarten in just a few weeks.
I would get into details of the pattern, but the photo just speaks for itself…the eyelet trim, the little panel in the front…I’m just melting and itching to go sew some more….ok, happy tears…LOVE!
Holy MOLEY!!! I just received this wicked pair of earrings!
CHEEEEEESE!
I know it’s hard to see….but I wanted you all to see how excited I am! I put them right in, minutes after opening the package!
I found this listing on Etsy a few weeks ago. The earrings were inexpensive and made from recycled CD drive motors! How cool is that? Very much “steampunk-ish, ” very funky and I love them.
Close up! Neato huh?
I showed someone the listing photo the other day and they were like, HUH? They didn’t get it and didn’t think they were cool. I was kinda bummed because I was so excited to order them! Then I thought—-who am I kidding? Do I EVER care what one other person thinks?? NOPE! I do what I want…..It’s the ONLY way of life if you ask me. 🙂
The crafter has one more pair of these earrings. So even though I think they are one of a kind, apparently there is ONE more pair! You can find the Etsy listing HERE. They are shipped from overseas but the crafer is fairly inexpensive and reasonably priced. Pretty fast shipping for over the big ocean too—I ordered these on the 8th (which I think was a weekend), they shipped on the 10th and I received them yesterday the 7th! So really only a week….not bad at all. Some people here in the states cannot ship that fast.
Anyhoo, if you would like to see what else this “Etsyian” has to offer you can check out the shop, CREATIVE FUNNY. There are many more uniquely recycled crafts in this shop!
Speaking of fellow Etsyians…….Did you realize that it’s almost summer??? It hasn’t FELT like summer around here lately….but I’m hoping it will get here faster…..I know this changes the subject a little but I HAVE to share! The official start of summer is June 21st, AKA, the summer solstice. In celebration of the first day of summer I am offering 21% off ALL items in my Etsy Shop, These Old Blues!! Use the coupon code: Summer21 at checkout for the discount. This coupon expires JUNE 21st so take a peek now! I have a few patriotic dresses in my shop that if you hurry I should be able to get them to you before July 4th!!
NOTE: This Etsy artist did not ask me to promote their shop nor their product at all. No money was received in exchange for this promotion. I used MY own photos of the item I purchased of my own free will. These opinions are all my own and I felt the INCREDIBLE URGE to share them with YOU my followers. 🙂
What do you think?? Are the earrings cool, awesome, and or fabulous? Or just NOT your cup of tea??? I would love to know!
This year we went to the “Hands on the Arts” festival and craft fair in Eastham, Ma, for the second year in a row. Last year the kid’s had so much fun and I couldn’t wait to take them back!
If you didn’t catch my post last year about this fair you can find it HERE.
The brief run down of this event is that it is all FREE! Well, the kids activities are anyways! They had a puppet show for the Littles, and a big tent set up with many tables so the kids could do all kinds of free crafts. Then of course there are awesome craft vendors to peek through! (****remember to support your local crafters!! They work sooooo hard!!!), and a few food vendors—did I mention the mouthwatering BBQ?? YUMMERS!
Anyhoo, enough with the words, this is what our day looked like:
Peter and the wolf puppet show. Thie kids LOVED this!Sorting seashells for the mosaic project…
I have to say here that my youngest, Shelby, was too small last year to really participate in the activities, besides putting her handprint in some clay. So this year she was very excited to not have to sit in the stroller. She had so much fun beading her own necklaces and choosing the beads. As you can see she is very proud of her work here!
Painting seashells, rocks, and starfish. You can never go wrong with toddlers and a bucket of paint. They love it!
My oldest daughter, Hannah was very interested in the pottery wheel. Here the woman is teaching the kids how to use it. This was not a take-home project because many kids would assist with one item, but it was still a great hands-on activity for the kids to learn from.
You can’t see Hannah’s project too well, but she made a girl out of clay. Very inventive.
I was finally able to snap a pic of what Spencer was up to! He loves to mess with tape, glue, cardboard, paper towel rolls, and anything random!
Each of the kids had an absolute blast. It was a day to be creative without restrictions. They had many choices of mediums to use, and nice works of art to take home.
And then we discovered that I locked my keys in my car. ://////// OOPS! Here are the Littles sitting in a shady spot while we waited for the AAA person to come pop open my door—–
*sigh, it never ends does it? 🙂
At least we had a good day anyway!
As Always — Don’t forget to visit me on ETSY, and LIKE my page on Facebook to keep up with all the goodies!!!! Remember to support your local crafters!
There is this AWESOME Easter Basket giveaway going on right now from Kelly Cronin Photography. Head on over to her FaceBook page now to find out more details on how to enter! BUT YOU MUST HURRY!!! THIS ENDS IN JUST 2 DAYS!!!
So WHY am I telling you about a giveaway on another page????
Well that’s because These Old Blues (that’s ME!) designed and created the incredible basket for the giveaway. The basket is made from recycled blue jeans!
Upcycled Blue Jean basket!Detail of ties up close! ***and my label of course. 🙂
Do you notice the bottom edge of the basket? Check again, does it look familiar??? Check the hem on your jeans now….Did I make you look down at your jeans? Great, mission accomplished! Go ahead and let me know that I MADE YOU LOOK!
This is the inside/ bottom, of the basket.
I’m going to WARN you that the basket is rather LARGE, so I believe you may have to be a local Cape Codder in order to pick up your winnings. Once again, Please check out Kelly’s Page for more details and the link to enter. Please hurry!!! The giveaway ends on March 20th!!!
One person at random will win a gift basket full of goodies! What is in the basket?
Kelly Cronin Photography :: $100 Gift Certificate Oasis Salon & Spa :: Gift Certificate Beach Way Sweets Shop :: Gift Certificate & Chocolate Bark Cape K9 & Chatham Dog Club :: 2 Free Dog Training Sessions, 2 Free Dog Daycare Sessions & product Pink Zebra Sprinkles & Stripes with Tiffany Jester :: Glimmer Candle Kit & 2 Jars of Sprinkles Cape Cod Mommies :: Wooden Toy by Toy Maker Lester Ruth Hooked Couture :: Gift Certificate Sweet Bean :: Kitchen Aid Mixer & Gift Certificate CapeCakes by Kristen :: $25 Gift Certificate & 1/2 Dozen Cake Pops These Old Blues :: Blue Jeans Basket Lia Sophia with Jilanne Silvester :: Jewelry Forever Knot :: Barrette Salon Fabulous :: Gift Certificate & Product Goodies of Chatham :: 2 Pairs of Snuggle Socks, Chatham Life is Good Mug, Life is Good Magnet & Stickers Summer Sitters :: One Evening (4hrs) Babysitting (up to 3 kids) Please contact each business with questions/restrictions or more info on the products/gift certificates they are offering. Sign up here for a chance to win! Plus, if you get 3 friends to sign up, you’ll have a chance to win a secret prize!!
Picture from Kelly Cronin Photography’s FB page includes logos of local businesses included in the giveaway.
This morning while enjoying my morning cup of coffee and catching up with some Facebook posts I came across this great idea:
Thank you to Tina S. from Deltona, FL, miss you neighbor!!!! This just made my day! Here in Massachusetts its a rainy yucky day again. We have had a few nice days that I am thankful for, but this rain? Really? I’m quite fed up with this weather. It’s not even hot enough to put in the air conditioners.
Then I realized today is June 13th, and my 14th wedding anniversary. (((((Happy Anniversary Hunny!!!! XOXOXOXO)))) It rained on our wedding day too, no it didn’t rain, IT FLIPPING POURED, and I swear it rains every year on this day!
Anyhoo, back to this clever find! I couldn’t be more thrilled to find a rainy day project for my 3 year old. It dawned on me that I’ve never given Sebastian paint…nope, what’s wrong with me? So this project was a MUST TACKLE IMMEDIATELY. Normally I would have all the ingredients for this but I just used all of my cornstarch this past weekend for making moon mud. [Another simple project I hope. to share with you this week.] So I wanted to stay home in my jammies today and enjoy a crummy rainy day, but then we had a minor setback to those plans and had to head out to the pediatrician for a minor issue. It looks like I had to venture out anyway, so off to the DR and the store we went.
I had a brilliant idea after first reading this post. How about Kool-Aid to color the paint instead of food coloring? Woo-hoo, smelly paint and awesome colors!
Gathering supplies
Now I don’t normally keep Kool-Aid on hand so I had to purchase this (5/$1 cheapo!) but I was remembering experimenting with Kool-Aid hair dye in high school. This is a great dye and they have fun colors. It’s a quick way to get a really vibrant red without having to use a ton of food coloring, or buying the expensive concentrated stuff for cakes.
So I mixed all the ingredients up just as the picture describes except that I doubled the recipe and I poured my “paint” into the baby food jars. I am always making extra of everything so that I have more for later. My theory is that I would rather have too much than not enough!
I remembered visiting a preschool, and also having a million friends who were preschool teachers, that if you add a little bit of soap to finger paint it becomes more washable. Please note that I said more washable, NOT completely washable. So you just have to add a little bit or the paint will become too soapy. I think I used about a tablespoon, but you don’t have to measure it, I just drizzled some in.
see the soap?
I began mixing the red. It was cherry! Oh yum!
I started with just a little bit of the Kool-Aid packet and then added a little more because it was too pinky-looking. After adding little by little I said to heck with it, for .20 I can handle using it all and I dumped it all in. I love the look of this! Then I noticed that I had some red dust on my fingertip, and washed it off. Oops, I forgot about the staining power of Kool-Aid. You would think that I would have thought about this when I was remembering dying my hair with the stuff. Nope I didn’t. I added some more soap after this thought. So make that about 2 tablespoons….ish….
This was my green. They didn’t have a green Kool-Aid so I had to mix yellow and blue. I remembered not to add all the blue because it can be way to dark. I couldn’t seem to get the green really deep, so I shifted gears and added some green gel food coloring.
Then mixed.
Ta-Da!
Don’t these colors look so yummy? You should smell them! Clockwise from the top is cherry, lemonade, blue raspberry, orange, green scented like blue raspberry lemonade, pink lemonade, and grape.
Now I haven’t experimented with Sebastian yet, I’m still waiting for him to get up from his nap. We will see how that goes, I’m kinda scared to be honest. LOL! I think my house is going to look like someone gave Picasso Kool-Aid, but at least the paints smell yummy…
*****NOTE**** this is probably not going to be neat in any way, shape or form. Kool-Aid stains like crazy! Of course I had to be different, me and my brilliant ideas. We’re only kids once right?
I am also thinking about putting glitter in the paints to make it fun too! OOOOO glitter paints!
As Always — Don’t forget to visit me on ETSY, and LIKE my page on Facebook to keep up with all the goodies!!!!
So if you didn’t catch the PART 1 post yesterday, you can find it [HERE] to play catch-up.
Sorry for the suspense, but the post was soooo long. I had to leave you hanging. It was fun imagining my catastrophe though right?
So this was one of those frustrating moments where I just needed to walk away. During nap time I was able to become Heidi again, and not the scary, screamy, crazy mommy that the psycho children turned me into. I had a thought.
You ever hear the saying, “If all else fails READ THE DIRECTIONS?”
It dawned on me that I was approaching this project like a guy, LOL, and sorry hubby. <<<Who needs directions, I know where I’m going…….hours later staring at the same street sign you know you just saw 20 minutes ago>>> I needed to do some research. What was I doing wrong? I went BACK to the drawing board, or my Pinterest board and followed the links to see how other people were doing this. My first mistake was probably peeling the papers. It looks like the papers are what actually seem to hold the crayons to the board. But no one discusses this as far as I have seen on Pinterest, it is purely my assumption, but DUH me, I just HAD to be different. Second, the glue stick. The other people used hot glue. Holy crap. Seriously? Why didn’t I think of this??? Someone please smack me I’m beginning to feel really dumb.
Third…My hair dryer sucks. I’ve come to this conclusion. It works fine for my hair, but melting crayons? Not so much. This is where my phone call comes in.
Me: Hi, do you still have a heat gun?
Hubby: Yes.
Me: Is it here (meaning home) or there at work?
Hubby: I have it here (at work).
Me: Could I borrow it? PLEASE???
Hubby: Yesss.
Yay! That was my biggest problem. So my hubby comes home for lunch and brings me this awesome little tool. It reminded me of the scene in Meet the Fockers where Greg brings the missing cat back to the family. The cat that wasn’t really their cat, but still it was the heroic-like scene played in slow-mo, the hero walks up the driveway with the beloved item in his hand. My hubby, my hero. Heehee, sorry for the cheese guys!
Anyhoo—-Looks like a hair dryer but comes with big warnings. He says, be very careful this is meant for melting plastic. Oh jeez!
I just thought this was funny, but obviously necessary….You know someone out there was bound to do it.
Glad I wasn’t using a plastic frame or this really would have been catastrophic!
So now that I read the directions I still had to make this my own. I am not happy with the idea of leaving the papers on, I just don’t like the look of it. Sure maybe it will hold onto the page better, but I’m determined to make this work….MY WAY. I took all the crayons on the small canvas and hot glued them to the page this time. Then I got even smarter and brought my art easel up from the basement [DUH] instead of sitting on the floor with this thing laid out on a cereal box. This was just brilliant. I covered the floor with newspaper because this wax splatters A TON. ****quick tip*** My kitchen floor is tile. Any wax that splatters on the tile (outside of the paper zone) comes off easily with a straight edged razor blade. 2 minute clean up, scrape and sweep. Done.
Moving on.
I began to heat up the wax.
I melted in my little broken piece. I was LOVING this little heat gun! In seconds I could see the crayons start to sweat and drip. SWEET! I played with the different directions, letting the crayon splatter versus letting it drip. This heat gun even had a cold feature (well cool) and so I could heat up the wax and then cool them down as they dripped exactly where I wanted them. Oh THIS IS WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!!
Do you see now how I like to do things different? This is probably NOTHING like what you pictured, but it is exactly what I pictured. It doesn’t resemble crayons anymore and I love that! I realized that as I was doing this that I may have made some mistakes in the beginning, but ultimately it lead me in the direction I wanted to go anyway. There really is no WRONG way to be artistic. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
TA-DA!!!!!! My masterpiece!!!closerI love the colors all mushy and blurryUp close and personal….I waved the heat gun around in circles to get the swirly marbled thing going. LOVE IT
Oh and this is my catastrophe masterpiece on my wall:
Yes I had to hang it sideways, just to be different. But I liked it this way!
But wait. I’M NOT DONE!!! It gets better. I still had one more canvas ready to go and the kids were still napping. SWEET! Let’s go for it.
Melty Crayon Catastrophe, TAKE TWO:
A new beginning
Can you see where I’m going with this one? I was so excited!
So I started melting away. Again some of the crayons were still breaking apart and falling off my page, but whatever. This is my art and I wanted to run with it. If there is one thing I learned about art: YOU CANNOT BOX ART. I like to let art tell me what to do. Whenever I try to force something the way I did the first time, it NEVER works.
So this is what I had going on. I’m in love in love (again).
Another melty mess! YAY!
And the total picture upon completion…
Another masterpiece!
It reminds me of the spin art we used to do as kids at the fair. I had another brilliant idea when I saw this….My daughter has a little pottery wheel. I wonder if it would work for spinning melty crayon art??? Oh this I may have to try!
Back to finishing up my second piece before I start a third…..
I liked it when it was done. But I wasn’t sold on it. I don’t know why, something in my gut said I wasn’t happy. Why I can’t really tell you. I loved it, kinda, and then not so much. Something was missing. So I went to bed that night thinking it needs something else.
So I slept on this thought. Much like taking a break in writing when you have writer’s block, I do the same with art. I woke up with the same gut feeling that something was missing and I knew just what to do.
and the madness continues….
I think there was too much white space. I needed more color. I needed more melty yumminess. I started gluing more crayons on in the spaces in-between the melted crayons, and where broken ones had fallen off. I glued more above the already melted ones in the little semi-circles. I broke off pieces that were coming off and re-glued them where I wanted them.
Then I melted some more……. and more…… and more….
When pieces fell off, I got smart this time. I took wax paper and stuck them back on.
Wax on, wax off! Or should I say wax OFF, wax ON…haha
Stay crayon stay! This is also where I had a lot of fun with the cool button. I took a melty messy chunk of crayon and mashed it back to my page, then cooled it right where I wanted it. Then I went and melted it again. Haha! So much fun! I have the power!
YES finally I’m getting somewhere!
And here is the final.
Yay me!!!close up….and another close up view.
See art doesn’t have to be perfect, but this is my perfect. I took a complete catastrophe and turned into awesomeness. Yes, some may still call it a mess, as it is quite abstract. All I have to say to that is, well, it took people many years to enjoy Picasso too.
<<<Quick tid-bit here—- A little off subject but I have to share. It’s kind of the moral to the story here. I was given an abstract art assignment in my sophomore year of high school. It was a fabulous mess. It took me a long time, well planned and thought out. But my teacher didn’t get it so he marked me down on it. He said it was too abstract and didn’t resemble the original. Is that even possible??? To be too abstract??? I never thought in a million years that art could be marked WRONG… I was extremely discouraged and heartbroken. There is nothing a person can do wrong when it comes to art. It is like being graded poorly for your opinion, (I had a teacher that used to do this too, irritated the crap outta me).You can’t do that!!!! It’s an opinion, a point of view, and there is nothing wrong in that. Period. I was so upset with my teacher. Sorry Noonan, but you missed my vision. >>>>
I just wanted to throw that in because it took me a long time to get over this. I have learned to never let anyone get you discouraged over art. It’s yours and you do with it what you make of it. If many of the famous artists let people discourage them into discontinuing their work we wouldn’t have many of the famous pieces of art in history we have today. I love the impressionists era. Renoir is my absolute favorite artist. Monet is probably my second. Society didn’t like the begining of this blurry view of life. These artists didn’t give up. They persevered, just like I do with my work.
A few lessons learned here. First, don’t let anybody get you down over your artwork. Stand tall and be proud if you like it.
Second, just because a project uses crayons does NOT necessarily mean it was meant for children. My older kids maybe, my 3 year old, no way. I got splattered with hot wax a few times, and I would never let him use the heat gun. It’s too hot and dangerous for him.
Third, I could say read the directions. That was actually my first thought, but no, I dance to the beat of my own drum. In all honesty I would not have discovered this melty mess if I followed directions. My art would look like everyone else’s. This is how I have come by many Clever Catastrophes. I tend to use the term catastrophe interchangeably with masterpiece if you haven’t already picked up on that.
Picture-perfect locked in a box—-is not for me! I discovered something new. I took the road less traveled by…
Thanks Robert Frost.
—– and thanks Mr. Pearson for drilling that poem into me.
What about your art? Have you come by anything artistic accidentally? Have you made a complete mess only to turn around and realize that you liked your mistakes? Have you turned a catastrophe into beautiful works of art?
As Always — Don’t forget to visit me on ETSY, and LIKE my page on Facebook to keep up with all the goodies!!!!
This is the day you may begin to understand my artsy ways, and my title Clever Catastrophe. I have clever ideas that turn to complete catastrophes. But then I turn my catastrophe back into pure cleverness. Hence my namesake Clever Catastrophe was born. I hope I don’t lose you on this, stay with me, I promise you’ll understand by the time this post is finished.
Yesterday was NOT a good day. It started out yucky, drizzly, misty, all together it was just a nasty day, and I thought I could turn it into something fun for the kids. I’ve been dying to try out the cool crayon melted canvases I have seen all over Pinterest. Have you seen them? I thought they were quite clever. This is what I found:
melty crayons on Pinterest
This was love at first site! I thought how hard could this be? You take crayons and stick them to the paper/board-whatever, and then you melt with a hairdryer. Got it. I DON’T need directions. ****My first mistake…
I pulled up some of my cheapo yard sale frames. I had a vision. I love things that think “outside the box” quite literally and by that I mean pictures and art that extends beyond the frame. I envisioned this not-so-perfect, neato, melty mess, dripping along the edge of the frame, oh yum. I envisioned it all. I don’t like perfect order….to me that’s just way too perfect. I love abstract art. I like the imperfections and mismatched style that looks like it was just meant to be that way. Yes the rainbow and perfect order is pretty and great, but that doesn’t say HEIDI.
So with the rain and all I thought it would be a good project for Sebastian and I.
Apparently I thought wrong.
For all those of you who think, oh gee how does she have time for all this? How does she do this with little ones? She always manages to come up with great ideas and life is perfect hunky-dory. NOT NOT NOT! I promise you this is NOT the case. Yesterday was an epic failure as an artsy crafty mom.
Anyhoo, first I measured out my cardboard backings and paper for the frames. Cutting, snipping, gluing, then stapling in the backs nice and secure, all while the kiddos were eating breakfast. Laying out ginormous pieces of cardboard on the kitchen floor was quite entertaining I suppose.
Second we started peeling papers of the crayons. Let me just tell you that EVERY single board I found on Pinterest and Etsy with melty crayon thingys all had the papers. I thought, why? I don’t like that! It looks like crayons…..I want a piece of art that looks like it USED to be crayons. So of course I have to be different. Remember when I told you in my first post that I look for inspiration in other’s craftiness, yet I put my own spin on things; this is exactly what I mean. Again, you’ll understand when this is all over.
I purchased 2 boxes of dollar store crayons last week knowing I had this creation up my sleeve. $2 for 2 packs of 48 crayons was perfect for a melty mess, who needs Crayola brand when you’re just trashing them for art? Save those for real coloring projects. ****quick tip**** the dollar store crayon papers peel easier, sometimes the papers just fell off on their own— it was so easy! Also they have more of the same or similar colors (yes repeats, lol).
So we peeled papers, and then glued naked crayons to our canvas. They only needed a little stick because once they started melting they would just stick on their own to the paper, so a glue stick would be just fine right? My second mistake, WRONG AGAIN.
measuringGluingchoosing and gluing
This small one was supposed to be Sebastian’s artwork. After gluing the crayons down, we started up the hairdryer.
hairdryer by Sebastian
I decided to start this flat, give the crayons time for a little melting action. I wanted to make sure these crayons stuck to the paper. It was a good idea, but that doesn’t mean it was going to work. Sebastian was bored after about 8 seconds. So I took over. Shelby was being clingy so I let her sit in my lap….she climbed all over me tried to knock the frame over, smacking crayons, poking me in the eye, banging her head on mine, etc. TWENTY minutes rolled by and these crayons were barely getting shiny, least of all drippy….UGH, this was just not working, the kids were just being insane and all I wanted to do was finish this stupid project. Yes at this point it was stupid. Screaming children, messy living room, dishes in the sink, laudry needing to be done. yes I should have attended to these, but I thought this was going to be a simple project to entertain the kiddos for an hour. There would be time for housework later.
This simple project for the kids became MY project.
I kept on truckin’ with this hair dryer. I figured a few more minutes and these crayons were going to melt. Baby climbing on me again, Sebastian taking her toys, coloring on the TV, pulling things out of cabinets, sippy cups being thrown out the window, pulling the dogs tail. Oh jeez this was NOT working.
But I was obsessed. Just 5 more minutes guys, please. Baby back on my lap….and the crayons FINALLY started to melt! YAY!
Yay! Melting! Not how I planned but I didn’t care at this point.
After starting and stopping a thousand times the kids gave me 5 full minutes and I thought I was getting somewhere.
Then catastrophe.
Melty crayon falling off oh no!!!!
One of the melty crayons broke and started to fall. (Yes that is a cereal box holding up my artwork.) You know, this was very frustrating. It was not working. Stopping again to try to fix the issue, the crayons were cooling and needed to remelt yet again. The kids were being OK, so I prayed please give me another 5 minutes, please please, I’m almost there I can feel it. I moved on. I decided that I liked the broken crayon there. It gives it character, and it says me, non-perfection makes it perfectly ME. Good. Moving on.
Heating yet again.
Another catastrophe.
More crayons falling off.
FUDGE! OKAY, NOW I’M TICKED. Kids climbing on me again, fighting, throwing fits. This is just NOT happening. OK I give up. This was my sign from God, jeez, pay attention to your kids get over this crayon melty mess. I put everything away and said I’m done with this crap.
Had some quality time with the kids, made some lunch. Then ahhhhh. Nap time. Peace.
Sometimes a break is all I need to clear my head.
And I did it. I gathered my thoughts, pulled my supplies out again, MADE A PHONE CALL <<<<<<that’s important if you can’t tell>>>>>>>>>…..and I came up with the perfect melty mess that I imagined.
But I can’t show you just yet…..It would ruin the surprise. There is more to the story and I don’t want to bore you, so I can give you a sneek peak.
sneek peak!
Oh, isn’t it just perfect? Oh I love it. I’m very pleased and I can’t wait to share. Stay tuned…..
Clever Catastrophe 