Let's Get it STARTED!

First things first, I'm Geneva and I am law student living in Durham, NC.  I enjoy shopping, cooking, traveling, and reading (when it is not law school material).  With my second semester of school quickly approaching, I decided to start this blog as a way to escape the daily grind of law school.  I hope by sharing my love of all things fun, food, and fitness related, I can inspire others to try something they would have never thought of doing.

So for my first post, I want to share with you one of my favorite pinterest crafts.   

 Melted Crayon Canvas Art!

This project is very simple and only requires a canvas, crayons, glue, and a hairdryer.  To start off this project, I purchased an 18x24 canvas from Ollie's for around $5, and a 120 pack of Crayola crayons (because they are the best) from Wal-mart for around $7.  I then searched Google for a heart template, because I am a perfectionist and had to have the perfect heart shape.  Also, because I am such a perfectionist I measured for the exact center of the canvas for my heart template, and used scotch tape to temporarily adhere it to the canvas. I sorted through the crayons and chose the colors that I personally thought were the mostly appealing for this project; however, after seeing how it turned out I would not choose dark greens or blues for a second project, because they did not look so attractive once melted (see top left and right corners of above photo).  Once I eliminated all the "ugly" colors, like Mahogany and Sepia, it was time to glue the crayons in place. 

Now I have seen on pinterest many people stating that hot glue should be used for this process, but I used Aleene's Original Tacky Glue, because it is stronger than Elmer's and unlike hot glue it will not melt the crayon, plus it isn't nearly as messy.  I wanted the crayons to maintain their shape with only the tips melted, so for me Aleene's was the best choice.  I have also seen on pinterest that you must hold the hairdryer over one area for at least 20 minutes to melt the crayons, but I spent all of maybe 5 minutes on the entire melting process.  I used a 1875 watt travel hairdryer by Revlon, held it about six inches away from the crayons and waved it back and forth.  I will say that this the by far the hottest hairdryer I have ever used.  When I use this baby to dry my hair I have to stop and every now and then because the heat starts to burn my scalp, so I'm sure this was the main reason for my much quicker melting time than other pinterest users.  A quick tip for getting nice crayon splatters is to hold the hairdryer at 45 degree angle as opposed to directly over the crayons.  Also, it is a good idea to place a trash bag or some other item under the canvas so you don't get melted wax splatters in your carpet (I learned this the hard way).

Notice all the melted crayon splatters on the cardboard.

Overall, this is one of the most simple pinterest crafts I have done, and it was definitely fun.  I could see this as being a really good project for children, because of the simplicity and of course the amazement in watching the crayons splatter all over the place.  I seriously thought it was the coolest thing to see the tips of the crayons literally explode, and once again pinterest had me asking myself why have I never thought of doing this before?  I also had fun reading all the crayon names (they are much cooler than when I was a kid).  I mean Macaroni and Cheese, Razzmatazz, and Unmellow Yellow, who comes up with these names, and how can I get their job.  My favorite Crayola crayon when I was growing up was Cerulean, what was yours?