A Lesson in the Making

Yes there is a lesson in making things that we don't always see.  We need to use our right brains!  I think that is how we will eventually be able to apply what we learn with our left brains.  I'm by no stretch an expert in this, but it's just a hunch.  I just think too much left brain will not allow us to find solutions that to problems like, "if there's no door in the room, how do we get out?"  Some people could not say, "Through the window." or anything like that.  

So for us, even a project that turns out poorly, we try to learn something anyway.  Today, we were doing the hairdryer/crayon art that I've seen posted on Pinterest and many-a-blog.  I am not one who likes to copy a project in every way, so we developed a new way to do this.

This picture or one like it can be purchased on Etsy where I snagged it from.  

Well.... it didn't turn out the same, but we learned a few things.  Here is what we did.

First I took a few tools: Hair Dryer, Broken Crayons, Tape, and Paper.

The kids watched me make an example.  I taped a crayon to my paper and began with the hair-dryer.  I guess I didn't tape the crayon at first and realized that it was a mistake.  It blew across the table at first.  So after it began to melt, I removed the tape and stuck another one beside it.  I then realized that glue would be a good thing, so I started gluing crayons to the paper.  I used 6 crayon pieces approximately 1 inch long plus a small crayon chip that was about 1/4 inch long.  I told the kids to start gluing crayon pieces to their papers as I created my masterpiece.  Our paper is 18 inches x 12 inches.  There are no before pics, but after I looked at my kids' pictures with more than 20 crayon pieces on each paper, I decided we needed to modify our method. 

I turned on the oven to 220 degrees F not because it was a special formula, but that is where the dial landed when I stopped turning it.  I didn't want to bake the paper, so I left it at this low temp.  When the projects were ready, I popped them in the oven.  The first one was a mess!  The colors started running together and the 3 boats on the ocean were no longer, but one stream of blah was in the center.  Sister bear said that she didn't want hers to melt together like that so we took it out shortly after the first one.

We brought the projects to the table and began with the hair dryer and the most interesting colors were popping from beneath my son's picture.  It looked like fire to him so we began to create a fire picture.  "Smoke on the Water."  Well, not really, but we turned the picture sideways and it looks pretty cool.  Like a burning ship.

Brother's burning ship picture.

I just love the texture from the wax of the crayons.  Sis said that hers looks like wind on the flowers.  Since she wanted the flowers to remain in tact to a point, I tried not to mess them up with the blowdryer.  Her butterfly is a bit deranged, but I still think her picture turned out to be pretty neat too.

Sissy's picture of flowers, a butterfly and a cloud.

 Practical lessons were learned today.  If we ever are to repeat this project we need to use smaller bits of crayon.  The glue was a good way to hold the crayon in place.  Also, the wax melts through the paper and so my pan turned out a little messed up, but it is an easy fix.  I rarely use the cookie sheet without aluminum foil or silicone or parchment anyhow, so the non-toxic crayons shouldn't be a problem.

All in all the biggest problem was too much crayon makes a big mess.

Life Lesson.  Too much of something, even good things can ruin the big picture.  Not to the point where it is unable to be salvaged, but the picture will never be the same.  God has painted the picture of us and we do many things over the course of our lives which rearrange the colors and the patterns.  The picture is still beautiful in God's eyes and he still loves it because He created it. In the end, if we've allowed the master artist to keep painting and perfecting our mess ups, our life-portraits will truly be masterpieces.