Sunday, September 18, 2011

Watch out Kansas

Michelle has arrived.

For those of you that don't know, I am now working and living in Wichita, KS. As a Mizzou graduate, the thought of moving to such a horrible state was never in my plans. But now that I'm here I have definitely been adjusting and getting used to the town. It's honestly not that bad (but I won't deny that the drive here is boring). Fortunately, I haven't crossed paths with too many kU fans, so life here hasn't been too painful.

So far, my favorite part of this transition has been MY NEW APARTMENT. For anyone who has ever met me, you know I'm a crafty, creative person. So naturally, having an entire place to myself is basically a giant blank canvas for me. Which is way fun.

Speaking of blank canvases, I've already done some projects with a few of them. I left my college apartment with a large canvas painted blue that was supposed to go above my bed and a small white canvas with the outline of my face sketched on it. Needless to say, both of these projects were never finished before I moved out. But I brought them here, painted them white, and thought up new projects for them.

And that's how this little beast came about:


I got this idea off of pinterest, and it was too cool looking not to have one of my own. So I literally ran to Wal-Mart my first weekend here (even though I hate shopping there), bought the biggest box of crayons I could justify paying for (which was actually a tough decision), purchased my first official glue gun (I really don't know how I've made it 22 years without having my own), drove home and started crafting.
PROJECT SUPPLIES:
1 canvas
select crayons from 128 count box
hot glue
blow dryer
patience I managed to scrounge up somewhere

Originally, I wanted to do a monochromatic piece. That wasn't working for me, so I decided to pull from my 3 favorite colors. I picked out they crayons, arranged them in the order I wanted, then used a glue gun to attach the labels to the canvas (I've seen people who have peeled theirs first, but I liked the idea of having the wrappers still on). Once that was set, I propped the canvas at an angle and used the lowest setting on my blow dryer to begin the melting process. Some of the colors reacted faster than others, and some of them seemed like the wouldn't melt at all. But overall, I think this project was definitely worth the time it took hovering with a blow dryer to get a one-of-a-kind piece to hang on my bare walls.