Monday Made-It!!!!!

I'm so excited.... I'm finally linking up with Tara @ 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!! :)

I was inspired by this, and several other crayon projects I've found on Pinterest, but I just loved how this one had the flowers on it to look like a garden.

http://mommy.girlgetstrong.com/2012/01/16/melted-crayon-art-project/

So, here's how it went down...

On my way home from work on Thursday I became inspired and my thoughts went something like this:

I want to make something.

I'm going to make something.

I'm going to make that crayon art thing...

I'm going to make one for E (the niece).

And I'll make one for myself.

Yes, I'll make two... and it will be glorious.

Let's go to Joann Fabric's and see if they have supplies...

Crap, I don't even have a coupon.
Should I go home to find a coupon?

What if it's expensive?

Should I spend the money?

I want to spend the money.

I want to make something.

I was so involved talking to myself in my thoughts that all of a sudden I realized I was almost home. Yikes!

So, then I went to Joann's... I walked in, determined to make crafty things, and grabbed a basket.

I held my head high, and started walking down the main aisle when I realized I had no idea where anything was. So, I wandered around for a while, looking like a fish out of water... or some other thing completely confused and out of place.

Eventually I found ribbon... not exactly on my crafty supply list, buuuuut maybe I could use it!  I proceeded to look for ribbon. I decided that I didn't need ribbon, so if I was going to get some, it had to be on sale. And there was ribbon on sale! For less than $1.00! Problem? I didn't like any of the sale ribbon that was left. No ribbon for Claire. *sad face*

Next, I needed a glue gun. I happened to stumble upon easily found the glue & adhesive aisle and I picked out a cute mini-glue gun {it's PINK!} and some extra glue sticks. That was easy!

Then I was on a mission for letter stickers so I could write words on the canvas... and it was fate. I found the perfect stickers and they were 40% off! Yay!

I looked for crayons, celebrating my prior successes along the way, and I found them quickly with my supreme navigational skills. But then I decided that no one should buy crayons at Joann's. They're freaking expensive... like almost $3 for a pack of 24. Nuts! I know this because afterward I went to Meijer (I had groceries to buy, too) and got crayons on sale for $.50... yes, that's fitty cent people! It's ot even back-to-school sale time yet! Hooray!

{Side note - I went to the Dollar Tree for crayons before Meijer and they didn't have any. What's up with that?!?}

Apparently I was so distraught by the overpriced crayons that I lost my way in the craft store. I had to ask someone where the canvases were... The lady turned to her left, pointed gingerly across the aisle and said, "Right there."

Oh. Ok.

I proceeded to grab the canvases I needed and my wallet said, "YAY!" because they were on sale for 50% off. Ooh ooooooh!

Since I was done, I wandered around for a little while just in case something amazing happened before I got in line at the register. Nothing did, so I checked out.

Then my craft supplies sat in the bag on the floor for 2 days while they continued to taunt me...

Don't you want to make something crafty, Claire?

Come on, Claire, all the cool bloggers do it... you must not be cool...

Don't you want to link up for Monday Made It??

And then I got my act together and made these:

This one is for my niece!! It looks nothing like I had originally planned, but I love how it turned out! I initially planned to have her name in bigger letters across the top, and have the crayon wax less blended so when I added the flowers it would look like the stems or grass. But the wax blended together too much to do that, so I just stuck the flower stickers on in the corners (not pictured, but it looks super cute)....

This one says "Live, Laugh, Love, Read!"
I still have to scrape the wax off the letters, so it's a little hard to see them in the darker colors.

This one is mine, for my classroom. After Elizabeth's didn't turn out as planned, I decided I'd use the flowers for mine and do the garden thing. But, again, the wax blended together too much so it wouldn't work. Thend I decided to try and cover the whole canvas in wax and make it super rainbow-y. This one took much longer with whole blending thing and trying to cover the whole board. I'm pretty pleased with it, but still bummed it didn't go as planned. Maybe I'll feel differently after I clean up the words so you can see them better.

I ended up adding the flowers to Eliz's canvas...

I LOVE how this one turned out!

Here's a mini-tutorial if you're interested...

I used...

blank white canvas boards (I think mine were 9x12 ish?)

about 48 crayons per canvas

a hot glue gun & glue sticks

a blow dryer with a high-heat setting

What I did...

Put down some newspaper or whatever to prevent wax dripping problems.

Put the stickers on the canvas.

Get out the crayons and organize them in a ROY G. BIV fashion (you could mix it up if you wanted to, but I'm a little OCD) minus the brown, black, gray and white (which you could also use if you wanted).

Heat up your glue gun.

Hot glue the crayons to either the top or bottom on the canvas, points going toward the middle of the canvas.

Use the blow dryer to melt the crayons.

I tilted the board some to help spread it out, and ended up using my finger some, which sorta hurt and I would recommend a paint brush or something instead.

If I did this again, I'd not use stickers for the words and use paint or paint pens to write them on. When the wax got really metly some of my stickers became unstuck and started floating around. And using your fingers to put them back is not a good idea... hot crayon wax on your skin = ouch.

Next week I think I'm going to try a menu/planner board of some sort... at least if I get enough planning done for summer school. I suppose I should get on that...