Tag Archives: arts and crafts

Budget Mini-Makeover

17 Jan

I thought I’d share with you all the mini-makeover we gave the entrance to the children’s library.  Our children’s room is in the basement and sometimes it can seem like a maze of doors trying to find it.   I often see people walking around, looking lost.  Plus, all of the walls are painted white, white, and more white.   Something had to be done.

I forgot to take “before” pictures, but this is basically what it looked like:

Old entrance: Only one door open...no signs...soo not stroller friendly.

For about $20 (and a little elbow grease) this is what we have now:

We took the doors down and made a fun “Children’s” sign using scrapbook paper.  The blue posts are cardboard carpet tubes (free from our local carpet store.)  I spray painted them with a coat of primer and two coats of color. They cover up the hinges nicely, while adding some much needed color.

My melted crayon art made a reappearance here as well:

You definitely can’t miss the Children’s Library now!  And it’s stroller-friendly.  Success!

Tags: ,

Melted Crayon Art – Part 2

12 Jan

I’m back for melted wax fun!  (If you missed it, here’s my first melted crayon art.)  For this piece, I turned things upside down a bit.

I basically made it the same way that I made the first one (see instructions here.)  However, I used a smaller canvas size of 16 x 20 simply because I couldn’t scrounge up more green crayons than that.

I found the flowers at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbook section.  I arranged them on the canvas to get a general idea of what the final product would look like.  Then I went to work gluing the crayons and melting them with a hair dryer.  Once all of the melting was finished, I flipped the canvas upside down allowing the crayons to become the “grass” and the melted drips the “stems.”  Then I used the glue gun to glue on the flowers.  Ta-da!

Tags: ,

Melted Crayon Art – Part 1

7 Jan

I’m on break from storytime for a few weeks, so  I thought I’d take the opportunity to make some artwork to brighten up the Children’s Room.

These are all over Pinterest and I just had to try making one myself.  Watch out – I think I’m now addicted to melting crayons!  These are just too much fun (and oh-so-easy) to make!

Supplies:

  • Hot glue gun
  • Canvas
  • Large box of crayons
  • Hair dryer

I bought a 20 x 24 canvas because I wanted something pretty big for the library.  I also bought a 64 count box of crayola crayons.  After taking out the browns, blacks and whites, I was about 14 crayons short.  Luckily, I had some extras sitting around to fill in (mostly yellows and greens.)  If you don’t have extras, go with the 96 0r 120 box.

Line your crayons up according to color (or whatever is appealing to you.)  Then glue the crayons, using the glue gun, to one edge of the canvas.  Once they are glued, prop up your canvas (so that the crayons will drip down) and get out the hair dryer.  I turned the hair dryer on high to get started, but the crayons start melting almost instantly.  I’d recommend keeping the hair dryer on low (unless you want melted wax spattered all over the place.)  Plus, keeping it on low gives you control over how far your melting wax drips.  If you don’t care about such things….lay down some old sheets, turn the dryer on high, and have at it!

I have plans to make another one of these soon (I told you – I’m addicted!), and will post once I have it completed.

Tags: ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 425 other followers