Crayon Art with Jorden

Crayons...I just love them.
I love the smell mostly.
Each fall, I purchase new boxes for my classroom.
I'm not sure why I do, since most of my students are too "mature" for crayons.
But I need some kind of excuse to purchase them...so that's it.
Then I can take them into class and open the boxes,
taking in all of the lovely scent of new crayons.

http://weheartit.com/entry/16510849#My students aren't as into the new boxes of crayons as I am,
so I've been amassing a small collection of them.
Last spring I found a fun use of crayons on Pinterest and showed it to my niece Jorden.

Shockingly...it's taken us this long to find a time to complete it. 
She's a busy gal.  :0)

I was expecting a tough project, because when I saw it I thought that it could be difficult to get the crayons melted. Also, I was unsure about how the crayons would stay on the canvas...thankfully it was a really easy, cool  project. 




Supplies:
Canvas/es- Primed and painted(if wanted)...definitely primed.
Crayons
Hot glue gun
Hair Dryer
Parchment paper (to catch drips)

Directions:
1. Choose crayons and peel all of the paper off of each crayon.  This is a little time consuming, but just turn on the music, then sing and peel away.

2. Hot glue the crayons onto the canvas in any pattern that you would like...we found that the more crayons that you use, the more mixing of colors and cool melting designs it creates.

3. Place the canvas at an angle and line the surface with newspaper or parchment to catch the drippings.

 

Just ignore the painter's tape holding my dryer together...I know! I know...but it works!

4. Use your hair dryer, set at low and hot, then start at the top of the crayons and begin melting.  You will find that your dryer heats in different areas, so you'll need to adjust as you go.  Other than that...have FUN!  It really is fun to watch the drippings and move the drips around the canvas.

Tada!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now Murphy can get the attention that he's been begging Jorden for throughout the project.

 

I really want to try this crayon art next.

http://citygirlmeetscountryboy.blogspot.com/2011/09/crayon-canvas-craze.html 

Leanna's Retro-ish Art

Neon colors...they're baaaaaaackkkkk!  I remember being in middle school when neon, was neon.  My bright orange shorts and hyper-color t-shirts got a lot of use.  Well, not surprising, the colors are circulating again and now they will make an appearance on my niece Leanna's bedroom walls.

Murphy and I love having my nieces and nephew sleepover and we love to have something to create or work on.  Leanna chose her inspiration picture from Pinterest and gathered the paint. 

Inspiration Picture from ReadyMade

The color in the inspiration picture was just a little too tame for a teen heading into high school...so bring on the neon orange, neon pink, green, and blue!

Supplies:

• Paint (one color, two colors, or four)
• Canvas (prepped for paint)
• Painters Tape
• Paintbrushes

Now, let's create Retro-ish Art:

1. The day before you wanted to create the paintings, make sure you prepped the canvas. Now you can purchase prep. paint, but I just use some good old house paint or primer. The main point of this is so that the paint doesn't just soak into the canvas.

2. Tape the pattern using painters tape. Remember to press down the edges...we missed some spots and had a lot of touch-up work to do.

 3.  Leanna wanted the colors to be spread out all over the canvas...and NOT TOUCHING!  Food shouldn't touch and now, paint can't touch either. :0)  Some things never change...and thank goodness for that!

4. Now paint, paint, and paint....at least two coats.  You'll complete a third coat with the touch-ups.

5.  Remove the tape before the final coat is dry.  Waiting until in totally dries leaves a greater chance of having paint removed with the tape.  (I learned that the hard way before. )

 When we peeled back the tape, we had an unpleasant surprise.  Whatever is added to the neon colors, (felt slick and looked shinier compared to the others) made the paint peel.  We had to be really careful around those areas, but it still made it difficult.

6.  Now, sigh, the touch-ups began....a fine brush does a great job for touch-ups.

7. Let dry and continue any touch-ups.  If you're like me, you notice every little spot, but remember, up on the wall, those little things would be noticeable.

~~~Murphy was a trouper through the whole process. He really wanted Leanna to just pay attention to him and take him outside to play.

Thank goodness Leanna loves to play outside...even if it means handling a slimy, ripped up soccer ball.

Ignore the lack of grass. Murphy and his friend love to wrestle here!

Talk to my dog, and he'll be scared of you...Play with my dog and he'll be your best friend.  More on that later.
:0)

A Little Bird and Big Hearts

A Little Bird and Big Heart

Yesterday, I had a lovely crafter at my house, my niece Jorden, and she was ready to create magic.  She had an inspiration idea that was found on pinterest, and we went from there.

This was her inspiration picture...

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-04-27T10:30:00-05:00&max-results=8&start=3&by-date=false

Of course, I like to reuse things or use things that I've collected, so we scavenged for a few things.  Thank you Home Depot for your ample supply of paint chips! hehe :0)

Jorden cut out hearts using a template and then we began gluing them done using a mixture of glue and water. (Homemade "Mod Podge")

Hmmm...The paint started to curl, so we had to spend time pushing it down onto the canvas.

Good thing we were persistent!

 While we waited for the glue to dry, Jorden had spied my bird pillows on my kitchen bench and wanted to make one.

Hello Bird...

I made this the other day.  A group of birds have made a home in my chimney this summer and their loud chirping put birds on my brain!

Jorden work all evening...stitch by stitch...and in the end, she had such an adorable pillow!

I think that she even surprised herself! :0)

Murphy wasn't much help, but he sure loves having "his people" around!