Melty Crayon Awesomeness

Last week I pinned a melting crayon art project on my Pinterest boards with plans to use it sometime this year as an art project for home school. It looked so fun and easy, and I knew I had all the materials to do it. Eager to try it, I gathered all the kiddies at the kitchen table for a science/art lesson. First, we discussed rainbows - how they form, when you see them, etc. Then we learned ROYGBIV - the order of the colors of the rainbow. Using this new knowledge, I set the kids to organizing our crayons in rainbow order. We used two boxes of Crayola 24 crayons, and I took away the black, gray, brown, and white crayons since those colors do not appear in rainbows.

When the kids (mostly the girls) had carefully selected where each crayon should go, I hot-glued them in place at the top of our canvas. (Our canvas was 16" by 20", because that's what I had). We decided to keep the color name of each crayon facing outward so that they would all look uniform. Then the fun part started.

We propped up the canvas on a chair that I had liberally covered with newspaper. Using a hairdryer turned on high heat, I aimed it slightly downward at the purple/blue section of our crayon rainbow. The kids were delighted that immediately it began to melt and spray all over the place.

Each of the kids took turns making their own crayon wax splatters and using the "paint gun." (the Spud's words)>

We had a lot of splattering going on - I forgot to cover the side of our kitchen table with newspaper and soon it was speckled with various colors. In all the links I've seen, the artist managed to get their crayon wax flowing downward in straight lines. I think perhaps that's because they used a lower hair dryer setting or a different angle on their canvas.

Also, they probably didn't allow three-year-olds to man the hair dryer. :) I personally love the splattered look.

We then turned our hair dryer to low for a short while to blend our colors just a bit.

Here's a close-up of the colors all blended together. I'm not gonna lie - I was probably as excited or even more than the kids at this development. We still had quite a bit of blank canvas, and the girls suggested that we sign our artwork. I got the idea to trace each person's hand with their favorite color (with crayons from another box) and write their name with black sharpie in the center.

The kiddos posed proudly with their work (by the way, the crayon wax dries super fast so you don't have to wait forever like you do with paint.)

And then this pleased momma found a place in the dining room to hang it on the wall. The kids love to look at it, touch its interesting textures, and talk about ROYGBIV. Me? I'm planning our next masterpiece, perhaps in greens, grays, browns, and blacks for a camouflage effect for the boys' room.

Wordless Wednesday

the Drama Queen became friends with this colorful fellow at the zoo last week. . .

more wordless fun at 5 Minutes for Mom...

Found It Friday - First Edition

I told you all I had a meme in the works, and here it is! Let me introduce you to:

I am always inspired by the things around me. Sometimes those things inspire my artwork and shop merchandise, and other times they inspire my own home decor or sewing project. I want to share my inspiration with you on my "Found It! Fridays."

Here's how it works: I will give you the source of inspiration before each Friday. It may be a specific item, a photograph, a certain color, a celebrity, etc. Then you come up with 5 things that are inspired by the source. For example, the source of inspiration might be 'magenta." You may come up with a lovely photograph of the petunias growing in your hanging planter, a fantastic dress on sale at The Gap, your current favorite lipstick, and so on.

Each Friday you will be able to come here and link up with your Found It! Friday post.

Since today is the first edition of Found It! Friday, I'll just play all by my lonesome.

The source of inspiration today? This custom set of wall letters that I recently did for a customer:

As I painted all those colorful stripes and polka dots, I was reminded of the vibrant colors of the circus. Wouldn't it be fabulous to do a kids' room in a bright, fun circus theme?

1. These bright polka-dotted branches do look fantastic in a vase, as pictured, but I imagine them fastened all around the mirror of a vanity. (branches from janejoss)

2. I love prints and have several from different artists in my home. This whimsical circus ringmaster would be adorable on the walls of a kids' bedroom or playroom. (print from inventorysupply)

3. Brighten up the room with these bold circus wall graphics! You get to pick the color, but I personally love the glorious red. (wall graphics from ellynelly)

4. I just adore the simple pinwheels and cute elephant on this quilt. It can be hung on the wall, but I would rather see my kiddos snuggled under it reading a book. (quilt from bumblebeequilting)

5. The big finale for the room would definitely be this circus elephant chandelier! The details are amazing, from the tiny painted clowns to the party hats on the elephants. (chandelier from whimsicalcollections)

Hmmm. . . suddenly I'm craving some cotton candy and circus peanuts!

Next week's source of inspiration is: Summer Picnics

Hope to have some of you play along then!

In Case You Were Wondering...

In yesterday's post, I mentioned a very sad little incident in which the Beast decided to decorate one of my paintings with black permanent marker.  And in case you were wondering the outcome, I was able to save the painting by using one of the greatest inventions in the world - baby wipes!  I scrubbed until all the black (and much of the paint) came off and then redid that portion of the painting.  And here are the three paintings, ready to be shipped:

They turned out great, and I personally love the color scheme of this little girl's room!  The damaged painting was actually the owl one (of course, the one with the most background detail!)  This is probably the most fun project I've done in a while for The Framed Frog.

And speaking of fun projects, head on over to The Scrappy Frog to learn how to make this super easy dry erase board and some other ones as well!