Recycled Kisses

I received another pile of used crayons from a co-worker and went to town having fun creating some more chunky recycled crayons. This time I used a silicone baking pan that I had used for Valentine's Day years ago- it is designed to make hershey kiss cupcakes. Here's a look at how they turned out.

The Stolen Eggs

A friend and prior supervisor of mine sent me this link of a short animation her grandson made from a kit. He posted it on youtube and would like help in spreading the word so I mentioned posting it on my blog. It's pretty fun, interesting and impressive especially the stats it took him to create this short video. As far as I'm aware this is his first attempt at animation. Below is the information my friend sent me about the video.

He made the figures with clay. He then, to create movement, photographed them three times each time he moved them a small distance for the purpose of the story action. He took over 200 photographs to do this and then converted them to a video using special software. He posted it on youtube and so far about 60 people viewed his "masterpiece" entitled The Stolen Eggs. It takes just a moment to view and it is fun to watch. Quite amazing in fact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AcAae5BsIU&context=C32b74f3ADOEgsToPDskIgXQqghX2xvUNwO8k1aBSZ

Chunky Recycled Crayons

Create your own fun crayons by recycling old broken worn down crayons. I saw this idea on pinterest; http://pinterest.com/pin/107171666102309043/ and it reminds me of the chunky block crayons I loved as a kid. You can have a lot of fun with this project by utilizing different shape pans and using different color patterns. This is also a great project to do with kids or really anyone of any age would enjoy this. I won't give a tutorial because here's a great link that leads to a blog from pinterest that does a perfect job providing a step by step tutorial; http://juliegallow-creatingart.blogspot.com/2011/11/homemade-crayons.html?showComment=1322113007540#c7182647551314310085.

I ended up finding the silicone mini brownie pan at Michael's Craft Store and paid $5 with a 50% off coupon. A co-worker gave me a sandwich bag of her daughter's old crayons. About 30 crayons made 24 recycled crayons. It took about 20-25 min. to melt the crayons. I'd like to keep making these and try different shaped pans.

They WORK!

Accessory Craze!

I'm apparently into jewelry making lately. When visiting my sister in SC, I commented that she had acquired numerous neat pendant necklaces. She said she picked them up at Plato's Closet and of course we had to make a trip there. She found another awesome necklace that I missed in my scouring but I did find this 5 different stands of bead/chain necklace for $3. Prior to leaving for this shopping adventure my sister had given me these earrings that matched a pendant necklace she had. I decided to tear apart the 5 strand necklace and the earrings and reuse the necklace portions to create my own pendant necklace. So for $3 I was able to make two of the pendant necklaces and I still have 3 strands of beads/chain left over for future endeavors!

Vintage Fried Marble Necklace

I kept seeing fried/oven baked marble necklaces on pinterest and thought it looked like a fun science experiment. While at my parents for the holidays I asked to confiscate some vintage marbles that were from my grandfather's collection and with some trepidation about blowing up glass marbles and harming myself I decided to give it a whirl. I couldn't find the oven baked marble recipe I had originally found on pinterest so I google searched and found a recipe for fried marbles. I would give the person credit but I lost the site.

The basic concept is to put marbles in a pan on the stove in between medium and high for about 10min. and continually roll them around with a wooden spoon. Have a container of water with ice in it ready to go and as soon as you are done frying the marbles dump them into the ice water. You will see them crackle immediately. I left the marbles in the water for about 1 min. to cool down.

To make the necklaces I went to a craft store and purchased "bead caps", put a wire loop through the bead cap, epoxied on the bead cap to the marble and then purchased a chain from the craft store. I made 3 necklaces for $10; one for my mom, one for my sister and one for me. Now we have wearable jewelry made from my grandfather's marble collection.

**This was a really neat science project. I have many left over crackled marbles waiting to be used. They look beautiful in the sun and are fairly durable for being cracked. I experimented by putting in a plastic bag and dropping it on my paved driveway. The marble didn't break until several very hard slams to the ground and then it did shatter.

All Toys have been delivered!

Update: All of the toys I created for the toy society have been delivered! I delivered two toys for the Christmas drop. They have been posted on the Toy Society blog and are #'s 1729 and 1730. My 4 yr/old nephew helped me to deliver 3 out of the 4 left. He had a little difficulty understanding the concept and decided to keep the squid looking one for himself. The other three can be seen on Flickr under the The Toy Society group and will hopefully be added to the Toy Society blog soon!

Update: The two sock colored striped ones for my 2 little nieces were a hit. My sister-in- law really appreciated the homemade toy idea.