A Day's Work, Canvas Crayon Crafting, A Broken Rotary Cutter and a Signature Block

So today I slept in, and then read for a while. Then I got up, ate, hoovered upstairs and down, put laundry through and made broccoli and stilton soup for supper. and I finally got round to finishing one of my canvasses:

You like? I like! I'm pretty darn happy with it! I know, these kind of things have been going round the internets for a while; mine is nothing special. But it is to me! I chose the image carefully, drew it out on paper first, then copied it onto the canvas. Then I bought absolutely loads of crayons, chose which colours I wanted, tested each crayon and sorted them by shades. The remaining crayons got turned into the toddler's birthday gift. These ones got glued onto the top of the canvas with a glue gun. Then I used the craft heating thingy to melt the crayons. Most people recommended using a hairdryer to melt the crayons, and reckoned on it taking about 15 minutes per section. But the heat thing was actually really quick; and I kept it moving steadily, rather than in sections so much. I guess it divided roughly into 5 sections? But it took almost no time at all. The crayons melted quickly, then it was just a matter of moving the heater around to mix the colours and spread them. I also followed some of the wax runs down with it too, to get rid of lumps. And I used cardboard curved round and held in place with masking tape at a sharp angle to protect the umbrella from wax:




you see? The wax just ran round it and down!

And that was basically it! Once the wax had solidified a little I removed the card from the canvas, then melted the wax just a little round the umbrella to soften any lumps.

I love the silhouetted figure. I always imagine she looks so happy, dancing in the rain with her brolly!








The other thing I did this evening was to make the signature block for Kettleboiler's quilt. But I had a mishap part-way through making it:

 It wasn't me, guv, I swear it just fell off in my hand! That snapped off piece is the toggle you press to snap the blade back in. Thankfully if you dig your nail into where it used to sit you can still pop the blade in; but it's not as easy!

I did, however, finish my siggy block:

 Sorry, I know the picture quality isn't great. the teal fabric is really resistant to photography! But I think it'll do - I sure hope so!

That's all for today. Tomorrow I'll hopefully get some of the quilting things sent off in the post, and get some letter writing done too. I'd also like to make a start on these pyjamas I've been wanting to get on with for ages; or perhaps my apron for Norland!

Love love xx

A Full Day's Work for a Toddler's Birthday, Quilt and Bed

Well, I did not achieve nearly as much as I had planned. Mainly because making the toddler's birthday present has taken me all day. it took me all afternoon just to peel the paper off the crayons; there was enough of it to fill my bin:




 Peeling crayons? So not fun. Plus, it's left me with sore fingertips from digging my nails underneath paper.











And that's not to mention the amount of time I spent sorting and organising the crayons according to colour and shade. The colour they look like on the outside is not the colour they colour in necessarily. Which means every colour had to be checked on paper.









Then they all had to be chopped up into tiny pieces. At first I tried using a sharpener, thinking that I would get a quicker melt that way and was therefore being smart. Turns out not, as the crayons kept gumming up my sharpener, and the shavings melted down into miniscule amounts. So I chopped the crayons after the tester one failed. The paper towel helped stop the shards of crayon from escaping.





See how awesome that looks?! I got about 13 tubs like this, all with different colours and shades in. Each got tipped into a heart-shaped silicone cupcake mold and stuck in the oven at 130 degrees c for about 20 minutes. Then they got pulled out, a skewer prodded around in each to ensure full melting and left to cool. They take about 45 minutes to an hour to cool and solidify enough to pop them out of the molds.

 And voila! Cute heart-shaped crayons, big enough for any toddler to hold, and impervious to the destruction that felt tips or narrow crayons suffer! And therefore totally worth the day's work they took, and my fingernails and so on. All effort completely worth it, as far as I'm concerned!

 The marbling is less obvious in these photos as it is in real life. I will put up a picture or two tomorrow with them all on, since a lot of them are still cooling.

Aside from that, I found the photos I'm going to use in my quilt blocks. I did not modify my top, or do any knitting, or get out for a walk. But I got the most urgent job done. the toddler can now happily turn 3 next Sunday with no worries on my part about finishing her present! And with that, I'm going to bed!

Love love xx

Creme Caramel, Reading, Birthdays and Tank Engines, Plans for Tomorrow Include a Walk - I hope

I made crème caramel today at the grandparents. Wanna see? I made five of them, but brought three home:

 See how delightful they are?!

And up close... so pale, if a little wrinkly!

And when you break in, there's all that deliciously perfect caramel goodness. Yes, they tasted amazing! I've never made it before, but the recipe was pretty simple and worked very easily. there was some fun in pouring the caramel into the ramekins, as it cooled a lot and so started to solidify;; which meant that I ended up with some spun sugar strands as well between the scraper and ramekin! They tasted pretty awesome.



I also find time to read a lot more of Atonement. I'm actually rather enjoying it, despite the negative story plot. The writing style is simple and very human. I haven't seen the film at all yet, but maybe once I've finished the book I'll buy it from the store or something. It is pretty cheap by now, after all.

I started making the birthday present for my toddler this afternoon. I'm planning to melt down lots of crayons I have no use for into new bigger, heart-shaped, easy to hold crayons for this little girl who dries and squashes pen nibs and gets easily covered in the crayon wax from her messy, liquid-y wind-up crayons. Hopefully these new crayons which are a rather solid wax and high-quality and easier to hold will be better for her new interest in drawing. So far I've just peeled the paper off a few. So tomorrow I'll be chopping them up and then melting them in the mold. I just have to remember to make sure there's a 'Thomas the Tank Engine blue' in there for her!

Aside from that, I want to adjust a top to fit me; and sort out the last blocks for the quilt I've been making since forever! I want there to be photos on the last five blocks, so I need to decide what patterns I'm doing, and therefore where I can have photos; and then I need to choose the actual photos. It's going to be tough - there are so many I could include...! And I want to fit a walk in as well... I'm never going to manage to do everything, am I? Ah well, I can aspire to do it all! Wish me luck!

Love love xx