my thing-a-day for february

more thing a day projects
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

The plan was to join the thing-a-day for February, of course I had a mental laps, and did not sign up in time. I still wanted to go for it, so I did. I kept track along with a few other crafty folks over on tribe, as we conducted our own unofficial thing a day.

I have photos of some, and not of others, here goes my list of February's thing-a-day


Feb 1 • I made a body stocking
its shiny and purple
Feb 2 • I worked on my altered collage box, painted a Hamsa
Feb 3 • the kid and I made her habitat dioramas of an African savanna, we poked grass into styrofoam blocks, glued it the front, modge-podged the definitions on the outside of the box, and modge-podged a photo wrapped around on the inside of the box
Feb 4 • design and start carving a hamsa print block

Feb 5 • I ended up getting a bit carried away with the hands and drew a bunch more
Feb 6 • I fixed a bracelets link, I collected the stuff for my belly dancer altered box and cleaned off the table in the art room so I can use it for art.
Feb 7 • I finished the hamsa block print
Feb 8 • a friend and the kids and I made heart crayons (see earlier blog)
Feb 9 • We made more crayons
Feb 10 • I painted the edges of a painting that I need to finish
Feb 11 • I painted a second layer and taped the sides of a canvas
Feb 12 • I finished the striping and black detail work on that canvas and one other one
Feb 13 • I finished painting the sides, and did the eye details,
I actually finished and signed one of them!
Feb 14 • I ended up taking pictures to post, and some doodling
Feb 15 • I started my Swimmy etsy fish project (see earlier blog)
Feb 16 • I "moved" into my clay bag and taught a friend how to make scrap cats
Feb 17 • I finished the fish

Feb 18 • I finally got to use the hamsa block I carved, and I made some gift cards
Feb 19 • I posted process images of the fish I did for etsy, the pics were crap, but I posted them anyway on flickr
Feb 20 • I got a good pic of the fish and made a lizard on a rock, and some plant life fimo
Feb 21 • I baked the creations from yesterday, made some more Hamsa cards, sewed the "'first draft" of a dance costume, tomorrow I make the revisions to the outfit so its dance-able for Saturday
Feb 22 • Finished dance costume
Feb 23 • Performance Art! Performed in the costume
Feb 24 • made and burned a little hamsa pendant
Feb 25 • had flu but still made a hamsa pendant
Feb 26 • had flu worked on mermaid cane
Feb 27 • made a dragon bottle, and a scrap dragon
Feb 28 • shopped for cake decoration supplies worked on mermaid cane
Feb 29 • worked on mermaid cane

Finished the mermaid cane on the 2nd, posting its picture here as well!

CRAYONS!

A few weeks ago a friend and I saw these nifty heart shaped ice cube trays at Target. They were cute and pink and I really had no use for them what so ever. Well the other day she says she has been thinking about making heart shaped crayons using those ice cube molds. I thought that was brilliant. Im so tired of all the candy gifts at school, why not give something else. And I really do want my kids to learn that spending money isnt the answer when it comes to gift giving.
So I said, oooh lets do that. She agreed and went in search of the mold. I say search because the ice cube molds were no longer at Target. She found some Wilton metal mini muffin molds, and thats what we used.
Crayons are a way of life at my house. We have not one, but two huge crayon buckets, so finding bits of crayons to use was not a problem.
The crayons turned out fabulous, the kids loved each crayon better than the one before.

This is what we did:

We started with all the broken crayon bits, making sure all the paper was taken off.

We broke the crayons into little bits, if the bits weren't little enought, we put the color combination into a baggie and smashed them with a small hammer.

We piled the crayon bits into the mold tray.

We melted the crayons bits into one heart shaped crayon, the melting was done in the oven at 220 degrees and took about 10 to 15 minutes

We then froze the trays to get the crayons out.


J-man and me filling the mold tray.

This is what we learned:

Different brands of crayons melt at different rates, and the cheaper crayons have more parafin in them, the parafin separates and rises, giving you a layer of solid pale color at what becomes the bottom of the crayon

If you dont want the separation, use the more expensive crayons, but hey, this is a project that uses what you have--if you dont want the parafin layer you can skim it off with a paper towel while the crayons are still melted CAREFUL its lava hot, or you can sand the layer off after everthing has cooled down.

Don't put the liquid melted crayons into the freezer to cool, they will crack and break when you remove them from the mold. Let the crayons naturally cool to room tempurature, then put the pan in the freezer so the crayons will pop out of the pan (BTW this is specific to the metal pan).

Put the glitter in when you are smashing the crayons, it then gets all over and will be spread through out the crayon.

Pile the crayons high. There is a lot of air space they need to melt into, if you make enough bits to fill the mold level you will end up with about half of the mold being filled with melted crayon.

Bake the mold on a cookie sheet with an edge to catch the spills. They wont spill going in, but if your mold is full to the top, it will spill on the way out.

The kids had enough attention span for 1 dozen crayons each.