Melted Crayon Decorative Bowls

     For my birthday party this year, I decided to go with a highly sophisticated theme representative of the fact that I am now one more year into adulthood: rainbow crayon.  Over the next several weeks I'll be posting on the rainbow crayon decorations that I made for my party, so if you have any interest in hosting a crayon themed bash or just like crayon crafts, you've come to the right place.

Materials:
*Glass or other heat resistant decorative dishes
*Crayons in about 20 different colors
*Hot glue gun
*Hair dryer
*Glitter paint and paintbrush (optional)
*Ribbon (optional)

Directions:
*If you would like glittery containers, paint with 1-2 coats of glitter paint, then set aside to dry.
*Cut off the upper 1/4 of each crayon, then, once the dish is dry, glue to the bowl in a rainbow pattern. 
*When gluing, make sure to press the crayon firmly into the hot glue so that it will stick.  If the crayon falls off, let the glue cool for a moment, then gently peel it off the container, being careful to keep the glitter paint mostly intact.
*Once the crayons have all been glued down, layer your workspace with newspaper.  Turn your hair dryer on high heat and aim at the crayons.  Run the heat over the crayons until they have melted to your liking.
*As you work, you may find that some of the crayons slide down off of the hot glue.  If this happens, give the crayon pieces a moment to cool down, then move them to the side of your workspace so that they won't melt and stick to the bottom of your container.
*Set the container aside to cool.  Once it is sufficiently cool, carefully peel off the hot glue and any crayon pieces still affixed to the hot glue.
*Add some ribbon to the top of the container, if you'd like.

Rainbow Ribbon Tank Top

Materials:
*Tank top or other shirt
*Ribbon in an assortment of colors
*Fabric adhesive
*Scissors

Directions:
*Select a shirt that fits comfortably or perhaps is a little loose.  Since most ribbons aren't very stretchy, if you choose a tighter top the shirt may no longer fit correctly once you have added the ribbon.
*Arrange ribbons along the shirt until you find a pattern and spacing that you find pleasing.
*Cut ribbon so that it goes across the shirt from seam to seam.
*Glue the ends of the ribbon to keep them from fraying.
*Glue the ribbons in place.

Note: If you would like to use a shirt that stretches a little, glue down the center of the ribbons to maintain their position on the shirt, then set aside to dry for some time.  Once the glue is reasonably dry, put on the shirt and glue down the ribbon the rest of the way.  Let the glue dry for at least half an hour before taking off the shirt.  You'll end up with some bunches in the shirt, like what you see with the blue and purple ribbons on my shirt, but it shouldn't be an issue when you're wearing the shirt.

Favorite Photos Rainbow Tote

Materials:
*2 6"x6" fabric squares in each of the following colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
*Iron on transfer paper
*White fabric
*Iron
*Color printer
*Sewing machine
*Fabric in a color/pattern of your choice for the inside of the bag, the handles, and the straps
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive (optional)

Directions:
*Sew together three squares, one red, one orange, and one yellow.
*Repeat with the other three squares in those colors
*Repeat twice more, this time using the blue, green, and purple squares.
*Sew together one of the strips of red, orange, and yellow and one of the strips of green, blue, and purple.
*Repeat with the other two fabric strips.
*Following the directions for your iron on transfer paper, print out your photos and iron them to your white fabric.
*Cut out the photos, leaving a white border around them and arrange the photos on your rainbow fabric pieces in a pattern you find pleasing.  Sew or glue down your photos, being mindful of where the seams will be sewn together and of where the handles will go.
*Cut out a piece of fabric equal in size to the rainbow fabric pieces.  Position the fabric pattern side down, then align the one of the rainbow fabric pieces on top of other fabric with the colorful side facing up.  Sew together the two fabric pieces.
*Repeat the procedure.
*Cut out two strips of fabric about 1 yard long and 1" wide.
*Fold over the edges slightly and sew down to prevent fraying.
*Sew or glue the handles to the bag.
*Fold over a bit of fabric at what will be the top of the tote bag and sew down.  Repeat for the second fabric piece.
*Cut out two strips of fabric about a yard in length and 1" in width.
*Fold over the edges slightly and sew down to prevent fraying.
*Place the fabric pieces one on top of the other, with the rainbow side facing inward.  Sew together the sides of the bag.
*Cut two strips of fabric about 2"x12" and sew together, pattern side facing outward.
*Turn the tote bag fabric inside out and sew the 2"x12" rectangle to the bottom of the bag.  This step can be a bit challenging, so take your time with this step.

Note: there are other, perhaps easier ways to make a bottom for the tote bag (see here for one example). 

Royal Plant Pots

When Brian and I got our plants, we gave several of them royal titles, so when it came time to decorate their pots, I decided to make ones fit for royalty.

Materials:
*Gold acrylic paint
*White acrylic paint
*Paintbrush
*Rhinestones
*All purpose adhesive
*Clay plant pot

Directions:
*Paint the clay pot with a coat of white paint, then set aside to dry.  If needed, add another coat of white paint.
*Once dry, paint with gold paint and let dry.  If necessary, add a second coat of gold paint.
*Glue rhinestones to the rim of the pot.

Duct Tape Pencil Holder

Materials:
*Aluminum can
*Duct tape in color/pattern of your choice
*Black duct tape
*Scissors

With the end of the semester rapidly approaching, I wanted a quick and easy craft and these cute pencil holders turned out to be just what I was looking for.  I'm including a link to the post that inspired me.

Directions:
*Wrap duct tape in the pattern of your choice around your aluminum can until your can is covered in duct tape.
*Take a strip of black duct tape and wrap it around the rim of the pencil holder so that about half of the strip of tape hangs over the rim.
*At about half inch intervals, cut the overhanging portion of the tape in a straight line down to the rim of the can.  Fold the resulting pieces of tape over, sticking them to the inside of the can.

Striped Vase

Materials:
*Vase
*Painter's tape
*Acrylic paint
*Glossy acrylic sealer
*Paintbrush
*Optional: glitter paint

Directions:
*Using painter's tape, cover up the regions of the vase that you want to keep unpainted.  This probably would work better on a cylindrical vase than a curvy one like the one I chose because the tape has a difficult time fitting over the curves.
*Paint the part of the vase not covered by tape in a color scheme of your choice, then set aside to dry.
*Optional: add a coat of glitter paint.  Let dry.
*Once your vase has finished drying, carefully peel away the tape.  If you end up with some paint beneath the tape line, carefully scrape away the excess paint with something like a butter knife or a fingernail.
*In a well ventilated area, spray on a couple of coats of acrylic sealer, following the directions on the spray can.

Book Print Paper Rose

Materials:
*Double sided text (e.g. newspaper, ebook pages printed out double sided, old book, etc.)
*Acrylic paint
*Water
*Paintbrush
*Pen
*Scissors
*Wire
*Wire cutters
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Select the text you would like to use for the project.  For my rose, I selected the digitized version of the book Old Time Belles and Cavaliers (one of the many books in public domain that has been digitized by Google) and printed pages from the section on my ancestor Rebecca (Smith) Blodget onto heavyweight paper. 
*Select two pages (or one page if you are using a newspaper) from your source.
*Mix acrylic paint with warm water, then brush the paint across one side of each sheet of paper.  Your paper should end up looking like this:

*Let the paper dry.  If you are in a hurry to finish the craft, try drying the paper using a hair dryer.
*Paint the other side of the pages and let dry.
*Draw petal shapes onto your painted paper like this (they are a little hard to see, but they are drawn in black ink over the text):

*Cut out the petals.
*Cut a piece of wire slightly longer than the length you would like the stem of your rose to be.
*Curl the petals a little so that they develop the shape of real rose petals, then begin gluing the petals to the wire.
*Add some adhesive to the bottom of one of the petals, then attach the petal to the wire.  Wrap the sides of the petal so that they overlap, then glue together.  Repeat for a second petal, creating less overlap than you did with the first one.
*Add additional petals by placing a drop of glue on the base of the petal and affixing to the wire.  As you go, you'll want to add more and more petals to each row.
*Once satisfied with the size of your flower, crease the tops of the outermost layers of petals.

Need a vase for your paper rose?  Come back next week to learn more about a neat technique to decorate a plain vase.