"Kids, Look At These Crayons.." - Pinterest Winter Challenge

When I saw on Young House Love that they were doing another Pinterest Challenge I was ecstatic.  I have been wanting to do something with the crayon project I saw from one of the past challenges and just never got to it.  This was the motivation I needed.


                                                

                                                                                                  (Image from Katie Bower from Bower Power)

My project inspiration came from Unsimple Living.  She originally saw this picture from Etsy to get her inspiration:

                                                                    (Image from Etsy)


The original idea was to use broken crayons that we received at the end of the school year, but being that school isn't out yet, we decided to use whole crayons.  I have always wanted to do more crafts with our three sons, but whenever I even mention the words "craft" or "project" they run off screaming in terror.  After completing this project, I can see why.  I am a hot mess when it comes to pulling a craft together. 


Tuesday I ran to Michaels to get stuff for this craft.  I knew I needed two canvas boards, a hot glue gun and hot glue sticks.  I found a deal on the canvas boards (12 x 12) and ran and grabbed the cheapest mini hot glue gun and hot glue sticks I could find.  I then ran to Walmart and got crayons.   

Logan decided he wanted to keep the wrappers on his crayons and Keenan wanted to take them off.  It took me forever to find out an easy method for taking the wrappers off.  It took me a good five minutes to get the first wrapper off.  By the end of it, I was ripping them off in 30 seconds. 

I had the boys arrange the crayons on their boards and then went to glue them on.  When I went to plug in the hot glue gun and insert the glue stick, I realized I got standard sized glue sticks for my mini hot glue gun.  It started to look like this was going to become a two day project and then I called my mom.  She saved the day and brought over another hot glue gun and glue sticks.  Then it was time to glue them on.

The crayons with the wrappers glued on without any issues.  The ones without the wrappers started to melt immediately and I had to glue a couple of them on twice before they would stick to the canvas. 


This is what they looked like before we broke out the hair dryer:

Logan helped me for all of two seconds before he got bored holding the hair dryer.  Admittedly, I got bored too and cranked the hairdryer up to high speed instead of low.  Instead of getting the crayons to drip, this ended up making the wax splatter everywhere.  I liked it.  But the artist did not.  After Logan saw his masterpiece, he burst into tears.  Apparently, I had assaulted his picture with the hair dryer and he was pissed.  He said he liked it better before.  Luckily, this kid bounces back quickly and within 5 minutes he was okay with it. 

If you look closely at the scribbles you will see it is actually his name!

I then did Keenan's.  I went with the high speed for Keenan's picture as well because he said he liked the splatter effect.  But, because his crayons did not have the wrappers, they slipped right off the canvas.  We ended up deciding to just let them off slip off and decide how he liked it.  He didn't.  And neither did I. 

So.....our project turned into a two day project after all.


Wednesday, it was back to Michaels.  I got another canvas and went to get mini hot glue sticks.  All they had left were the glitter sticks and because I didn't feel like making another trip to another store, I bought them. 

The second time went much smoother and Keenan LOVED how it turned out. 

So....despite a few hiccups, we got two pieces of artwork to hang on their bedroom door.  And hopefully, I'll be a little more prepared now for the next challenge

Be sure to check out the fabulous projects done by the hosts:  Sherry, Katie, Erin, and Cassie.  These girls are amazing.  One day I'll pull off projects half as cool as these!

"Lellow"

The other night my husband, Matt, was playing on the floor with Riley when he held up a yellow ball and asked Riley what color it was.  Riley replied, "Lellow."  Matt and I stared at each other in disbelieve.  Clearly, we were raising a genius!  And then the disbelieve faded away as the following unfolded.

Matt:  Points to a blue object, "What color is this?"
Riley:  "Lellow."
Matt:  Points to a red object, "What color is this?
Riley:  "Lellow."
Matt:  Points to a green object, "What color is this?"
Riley:  "Lellow." 

So, maybe not a genius yet, but this mama is impressed that he even recognizes yellow as a color at this young age.  The rest will come soon enough!

A Happy Day (or at least it should have been)

Five years ago I married my best friend. When I read other bloggers' posts about their anniversary they typically go on and on about how wonderful that day was, how it was the best of their life, how if they could they would relive that day over and over. Yeah, not me. It isn't that anything particularly bad happened that day, everything went as planned, it was more that I was bitter about the whole thing in the first place and I let that ruin the day for me and my husband.

The resentment started early; with a proposal that, in my opinion, was a year later than it should have been. By the time he asked, I was ready to run down to the courthouse the next day. I had never been one to want a huge wedding. In fact, anytime I thought about getting married I always pictured a ceremony at a courthouse, just me, my future husband and a couple of witnesses. But my husband had other plans. He insisted on a church wedding and truthfully it pissed me off. This is MY day, not his. No one cares about what he wants. Weddings should be about the bride and damn it, I want to get married in a courthouse! But, I decided to go with it, as he insisted his family would be upset if we didn't do it this way (and imagine how mad I was later when I realized this wasn't at all true!).

So, I planned his wedding. He wanted royal blue for a wedding color. I tried to insist that that wasn't the best color for a wedding, and shouldn't I get to choose the colors?! He won. We made arrangements based on needing it to be as cheap as possible, which didn't always make him happy and I happily reminded him that we didn't need to get married this way. I made sure he knew every step of the way how miserable I was. How much time this wedding was taking me to plan, a wedding I didn't want. I begged several times that we just skip this nonsense and go get married at the courthouse, but he never faltered.

On September 16, 2006 we got married. I was four months pregnant at the time (don't know why I thought it was a good idea to get pregnant BEFORE the wedding) and even though my dress miraculously still fit, I felt like it was suffocating me. We stupidly chose the day of the Iowa vs. Iowa State game (anyone who lives in Iowa knows that this was a very stupid mistake) and we had a terrible time rounding up groomsmen for pictures and some grumbles about missing plays (or at least this is how I remember it). But even with those little things, the day went as planned without any major hitches and yet I made sure I was miserable and did my best to make Matt as miserable as possible too (luckily I didn't succeed though as he still remembers this day as a happy one).

So, that is how I felt about our wedding five years ago and even a couple of years after that (and possibly yesterday). Now that it has been five years, I regret being such a bitch. I wish I would have realized back then that it didn't matter where we got married or how we got married, what mattered is the commitment that we were making to each other. Five years later, he still makes me laugh uncontrollably on a daily basis, he has never broken my trust, and he balances out my craziness in a way that no one else has.

So, to sum it up, Happy Anniversary Matt! Even though I didn't see it back then, it really was one of the best days of my life!

Getting Organized

Right now my house looks like it should be on an episode of Clean Sweep (do they even make that show anymore?).  I have had good intentions for awhile to get our house under control and some sort of cleaning/organizing schedule in place but it just hasn't happened.  This summer was especially bad (with having Keenan with me on my days off) and our house took a really beating.  So, my goal is to get things organized by next summer and have some sort of schedule in place that way we can actually enjoy our summer and not spend our evenings in a pit. 

So here is my idea.  I will work on organizing a room each month and hopefully be done by May 31st (last day of school).

October - Keenan and Logan's Room and Riley's Room
November - Our Bedroom
December - Living Room
January and February - Kitchen (Yes, this will really take two months to get it to where I want it)

So, this would be great if I were actually done by March, but not counting on it.  I am excited because I plan on doing some of the things myself (like making bookcases for the boys' and our room and a shoe organizer for the living room area) and since I have never built a thing in my life, this will definitely all be an adventure. 

Can't wait to see what the next few months will bring!