My Heart's a Crayon

My craftiness lately is beyond amazing!  There's been much Pinterest success and that makes for one happy mama!  Now, it's time to catch up on all the attempts so that you, too, can bask in the warm glow of Pinterest perfection!

I'm a little late on getting Valentine's Day cards together for the boys to take to school, but baby's first birthday was this weekend and that's what I had to focus on for the past month.  And, boy oh boy, I've got some gems from the party to blog about...

But, today I had to get the Valentine's crap cutesy cards ready.  When I first start pinning (how bout we just lay it out there and call it crack for crafters) I saw several versions of crayons melted into the shape of hearts.  Hello??  Perfect!  I don't know about you, but seriously, my older son goes psycho slightly bananas when all that candy is in the house.  So, a non-edible valentine?  Yes, please!  Hopefully, some of the other mamas will catch my wavelength! 

Now, before I get into the instructions, this is EASY.  The hardest part is peeling the paper off the crayon.  That's where you put those little monsters children to work!  Practice fine motor skills?  Check.  Unfortunately, baby has not yet mastered peeling.  He did a great job of eating the crayon though.

I was under the impression that I needed one of those silicone molds.  Nope.  I was shopping for the food for baby's party and walked past the Valentine's display.  Right in front of me was a heart shaped tin meant for baking donuts. 

I used all the no-name crayons we had in our stash.  Some were the larger versions and some were skinny.  Doesn't matter their thickness as long as you peel the paper. 

Spray your tin with cooking spray.  Break up all the crayons into pieces and let the kiddos toss them in.  Our first batch was just kind of a hodge podge.  But, then we started getting a little creative. 

I saw the printable on The Long Thread and she linked up to Make and Takes where I found specific directions.  Oven - 265.  Time - 7 minutes or until the crayons are all melted.  This is after the pieces were broken just before putting them into the oven.

In the oven - almost ready to take out.

I set mine on the counter for a few minutes until the wax starts to set up.  Then, pop them in the freezer until the edges start pulling away and they are solid.  I think it was maybe 10 or 15 minutes.  Flip the tin upside down and your hearts are ready!

Loved the gray/orange!  Now it's time to assemble the valentines.  I printed out the printable from The Long Thread, rounded the corners, and punched a hole to tie the heart to the valentine.

Annnnnnnnddddd, POW!  Watch out Martha! 



Fumes Talking? Or Success? Spray Paint + Wine Bottles, You Decide.

You better sit down for this.  Finally, crafty Pinterest success! 

Here's the lowdown. 

Grab those empty wine bottles; never a problem around here!  The instructions (I kept trying to click on the link on Pinterest, but no dice - linked to my board so that you can attempt to get to the link) show clear wine bottles that were taped off and spray painted white.  I grabbed some bottles with shapes that I liked and some spray paint. 

Peel off the labels and use some Goo Gone to get the glue off.  I did a quick wash of the outside and rinsed out the insides. 

Outside I grabbed orange and gray spray paint and sprayed those bad boys - one gray, two orange.  Works well to do several light coats. 

Make sure you do it in the back yard so all the neighbors don't see your accidentally spray painted orange grass.  Sorry honey. 

Base coats done!  In my head I wanted a bottle with orange polka dots and one with stripes.  I attempted the stripes first with some painter's tape.  Mistake.  The tape peeled off the base coat.  Sooo, I attempted the polka dots.  I had some of those colored dots that you use for garage sales and those didn't pull the paint off.  So, I dotted the big orange bottle and spray painted it gray.  Once I peeled off the dots I ended up with this!

LOOOOOOVVVVEEEEE how this turned out!  And, here are all three together.





These are going to be a centerpiece for baby's first birthday and I'm going to stencil his initials on the gray bottle and a "1" on the orange bottle.  **Dusting hands** Done. 

Upcycling Christmas Cards into Geometric Ornaments - How Hard Can it Be?

Ha!  OH my.  Again.  This.  Was.  Not.  My.  Fault.  I swear!  Pinterest, your crafty things are so cute.  Why oh why are you failing me?
It is well known (obviously to those who know me) that I am verbally gifted and VERY humble.  My better half is a rock star in the 'how things work' category so normally we make a good pair.  I had to enlist his help during the ornament debacle because my 3D triangles looked like those tab things they put in your mouth to x-ray your teeth.    

Here's the shakedown of the impromptu crafty date night (not really, but he had a scotch and I had some wine AND the kiddies were in bed AND we were conversing about something not relating to kids, bills, or work).

1.  I decide to whip out a few of those oh so cute ornaments since I'm taking down our Christmas cards and I had some left over from previous years (plus I needed something new to put on here for YOU).
2.  According to the original instructions, you cut out 15 circles (2 inches in diameter) and that's where comprehension of the instructions stopped.  Yep, I cut out my 15 circles and then spent an hour trying to crease and glue them into 3D triangles. 
3.  Enter husband.  Choice words. 
4.  He folds and glues.
5.  Verdict - the instructions are WRONG.  All wrong.  I am vindicated, but sad because I have no 3D geometric ornaments (I'm left with a pile of half glued mock x-ray tabs).

For your viewing pleasure.  I hope you realize the sacrifices I'm making for you!

Wine bottles, Fire, and Safety Glasses - Oh My!

Normally I wouldn't recommend playing with fire while drinking, but for this Pinterest experiment, you need an empty wine bottle.  Ok, ok - so maybe drink up the night before you try this one out so you're a little more sober.

Everyone needs a wine bottle cut in half...right, RIGHT?  Of course you do.  Think of the possibilities...candle, wine bottle vase, pen/pencil holder - endless, I tell you. 

Here's a little secret.  I had no real desire to make a candle or add to my vase collection.  Quite frankly, I just wanted to play with fire and see if this really worked.  Apparently you just need a wine bottle, yarn, nail polish remover, a pot of cold water, and fire.  The instructions from Crafty, Scrappy, Happy are simple.  Empty a wine bottle - umm, no prob.  Wrap it with some yarn where you want it to be cut and tie the two ends.  Slide the yarn off and dip it in the nail polish remover.  Slide the yarn back onto the bottle.  Put those safety glasses on.  Seriously.  And, maybe, grab the fire extinguisher (you know, just in case).  The fun part - light the yarn and slowly rotate the wine bottle.  After about a minute submerge in cold water and magically, the bottle should separate. 

It didn't.  In fact, it didn't FOUR times.  Our bottles flamed.  The yarn burned.  We sported some pretty awesome safety glasses.  We rotated.  We submerged in water.  Nothing.  No satisfying pop that EVERYONE says you'll hear and our bottles stayed firmly unified.  While unsuccessful, the pictures are entertaining.  On a side note, I'm pretty sure our children contributed to our failure (this is a song I'm sure I'll be singing again).  We tried to be sneaky so the older ones would not curiously meander into the kitchen - fail.  We tried to distract the baby with some puffies, but the food on the kitchen floor was much more interesting.  And, to top it off, there was a diaper disaster.   

Fire, fire, fire (who doesn't love Goldie Hawn?)!

    Still Whole

Because I like my friend, Rachel, I am not posting the lovely pictures of us in our safety glasses.  

The kids' situation forced us to shut down the science lab last night, but I decided to make one more attempt tonight AFTER the children retired for the evening.  I did a little more research, consulted with Rachel, and voila - sliced bottle.  However, this was a bottle we previously flamed, so I'm guessing that's why it cracked in all the wrong places. 

Here are the differences from experiment 1 to experiment 2.

1.  I held the bottle neck toward me and tilted at an angle.  I still rotated it slowly.

2.  Once the flame was going out (about a minute), I submerged the bottle, neck down, into a pot of cold water.

3.  Finally, a satisfying crack! 

Guess I'm going to have to drink more so that I can try to get a crack free split.    

 

Our Hands Make Leaves...well sorta.

First Pinterest crafty attempt - semi fail.  BUT, the fault lies with me and me alone (and maybe the baby because he would NOT cooperate with the handprint). 

While shirking my housecleaning browsing Pinterest one afternoon I saw this adorable family handprint tree and figured that I could feasibly get most of the fam to cooperate with the hands and the paint.  I was a little concerned about the drawing of the tree part, but I figured with my Pinot's Palette experience that it'd be no problem so I grabbed a bottle glass of wine and set to work. 

Before I give you my picture, a few disclaimers...
1.  I am not an artist (repeat over and over again - although the tree turned out decently)
2.  I plan, but when I decide to do something, I kind of just jump in without maybe planning a little more which would have been helpful with this project.
3.  My husband's hands - freakishly huge.  No clue since he's not overly large.  He (or rather his hands) led to the semi-demise of the handprint tree.
4.  The baby LOVED the paint, but did NOT love opening his hand.  He has five little fingers, not a mashed up clump of flesh which is what you'd infer from looking at his handprint. 

So here's the picture.

I cut off the other half of the tree, because, well that was my side and it was perfect.  And, our family info is on there and no offense, but don't want to give out personal information for the Pinterest stalkers that are out there (not you, of course).  When I'm less lazy, I'll blur out the other parts so you can see the whole masterpiece.  

But, doesn't matter.  You can see why I gave this a semi-fail.  With hubby's handprint on the side, it made our tree very lopsided.  

I just wrote our family name, year, and individual names in a fat sharpie on the canvas (I'm sure a paint pen would be fabulous also).  That worked out well.  The original person wrote a cute little quote, but I prefered the names...

These were for our mothers for Christmas, so they were all excited about paint and handprints.  "Only a mother could love..."

So, maybe back to the recipes again.  Plenty of those!

Krissy