Crayola Art, Part II

This is our 2nd Crayola Art project. We had so much fun with the first one we wanted to do it again but this time we wanted to do it bigger and better. I wish you could see it in person because it looks so much better.

Our first crayon project was done in a mediocre fashion (blog Crayola Art) because we were unsure of what the results would be and I didn't want to waste money. We discovered that melting crayons is very entertaining. Yes, we are easily amused.

2nd project compared to 1st project.

For this project we bought the 96-count crayon box and a 24x20 canvas. Not all 96 crayons fit on the canvas.  

The day we did this project it was about 7 degrees cooler. I can't believe 7 degrees makes such a huge difference. The crayons were not melting as quickly and only the blue crayons were melting.  I was afraid by the time the other colors started melting all of the blue wax would have run off the canvas. So we used our creativity (basically saying we cheated) and melted the other crayons with a hair dryer to keep the consistency and evenness.

 I just love these brilliant colors.

Warning: make sure you have a big cardboard piece or newspaper under the canvas because a lot of wax runs off. We now have crayon mounds on our porch where it spilled over the cardboard edges. 

If you don't want to waste the beautiful wax that runs off the canvas spoon or pour the melted wax into a snow cone or plastic cup. The container has to be something you can cut open. Voila...now you have a giant crayon tip. So the next time your children complain the tip broke off their crayon give them one of these. I doubt they'll be able to break it.

The spooned wax on left isn't as smooth as the poured wax on right.

Even the spoons look like art.

No joking, this was the kids' crayon container. Someone gave it to me from a radio convention about 15 years ago. I thought it was hilarious but I had no use for it. One day when company was coming over and I was in a hurry to clean I just threw loose crayons in the can and put it aside. The kids never really colored so the can was barely seen. In all the years no child ever asked about the can to to make me question my mothering morals so it always remained the crayon can. Now in retrospect and in my wiser years I see that I should have covered the words with construction paper. Live and learn.

 

Good Bye August, Hello September

I'm throwing the shutters wide open and welcoming September with open arms. I'm waving good-bye to August gleefully! August you were an unbearably hot month. My state is 98% drought ridden. Good bye to you and your hot, stagnant air that breathed fire that even the cool breezes couldn't stand it and took vacation. Good bye to the lazy summer of accomplishing nothing because it was too hot to move anything more than my fingers. (The butt indentation in the office chair is evidence that I've been sitting far too long.) Good bye heat dome - I won't miss you! Good bye to dead vegetation that I see on every street including my own lawn. The sad part is that we won't really get a pretty fall because everything is dead already. Every time I pull up my driveway and look to where I planted flowers last fall this song comes to mind.

"All the flowers that you planted, mama

in the backyard
all died when you went away..."  ~ Nothing Compares to You.

We're still in the 100s, but there is cool front arriving bringing the temp down to 98 degrees. You know it's hot when 98 is considered a cool front!

Betcha Didn't Know Tidbit:
This is just a little tidbit that is related to the drought. I thought it was fascinating. I don't mean to be crass because the shuttle is a serious subject but I thought of Pee Wee Herman's foil ball when I saw this pic.

Drought leads to find of Columbia debris in East Texas

NASA has confirmed that a spherical artifact found in a drying lake in Nacogdoches was part of space shuttle Columbia, which broke up over Texas in 2003 when its heat shield failed.

This spherical artifact found in Lake Nacogdoches, which is drying up because of drought, is from the shuttle Columbia. (Nacogdoches PD)

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2011/08/drought-leads-to-find-of-columbia-debris-in-east-texas/

The Heat Dome

YUCK!! The heat cap is back. Texas has been under a heat cap for weeks. I'm calling it the dreaded HEAT DOME.  In the beginning of July the media said that the heat cap was like a shield and it would make the rain clouds dissipate before it rained. Twice - big, ominous clouds rolled in and it looked like definite rain and just like the media said the clouds dried up. They said we were going to break records and it wouldn't rain for a long time. I was starting to believe the media (gasp) and I never believe them.  But God is so good!  He sent us rain last Saturday morning and as a bonus - instead of being muggy the entire day was just beautiful.

Texas Heat Cap

I feel like we are ants suffering under a magnifying glass.

Crayola Art

Today we took advantage of the oppressive Texas heat and made some beautiful art.
The day before we glued the Crayola crayons onto canvas and allowed them to dry overnight. We set the canvas out around 11am this morning. This took less than 2 hours.  I meant to take pics as the process developed but I totally missed the whole thing. I thought it would take longer to melt because when I told my oldest what I was planning on doing he started melting crayons last week on paper plates and it was taking 5 hours to melt. We figured out that old crayons do not melt as well because of my son's test and the few old crayons we did put on our canvas stayed mostly intact.  The new crayons melted pretty quickly.  Rose Art crayons don't melt as well either.

We poured the wax at the bottom of the canvas into a paper snow cone cup, placed that in an empty tin can and put it in the freezer. An hour later we had a giant crayon tip.

This project was inexpensive. I got the canvas at Aaron Bros at their Buy 1 Get 1 for a Penny sale and the crayons were only .25 cents at Kroger. You can see the crayons pictured in an earlier post about couponing.