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Upcycled Rocket Crayons

Upcycled_Rocket_Crayons

Photo Credit: Crab Apple Designs

If you have a house of young children, you probably have a box or drawer somewhere full of partially used, broken old crayons, as well as nubs of crayons lurking in unexpected corners and beneath couch cushions. Instead of throwing those old crayons out, give your little artists a fresh way to draw while giving your budget a break from the expense of new childrens art supplies. These crayons are larger size, making them easier to hold for younger children whose manual dexterity skills are still developing. Plus, the rocket shape means they have one narrow end and one wider end, allowing children to experiment with different drawing effects.

Things you need:
Old Crayon Pieces
Glass jars
Rocket-style popsicle molds
Pan
Stove
Popsicle sticks

Upcycled_Rocket_Crayons2

Photo Credit: Crab Apple Designs

Things to do:
1. Collect old crayons and remove any paper wrappings.
2. Sort crayons by color groups. you are going to be melting them together and you don’t want to end up with a mish-mash of brownish-grayish-black. Place each color group in a separate jar.
3. Fill the pan about halfway with water. Place the jars inside and turn on the heat. As the water boils, the crayons will melt.
4. When crayons have melted completed, remove pan from heat. Use an oven mitt to remove individual jars from the surrounding hot water.
5. Pour melted crayon wax into rocket popsicle molds. You can either fill each mold entirely with one color, or mix colors by partially filling a mold with one hue, waiting for that layer of crayon wax to cool and set, then pouring a new layer in a different color on top.
6. Once you are done pouring the melted crayon, gently place a popsicle stick in each mold, about a 1/3 of the way in the mold.
6. Put the popsicle molds into the freezer for about half an hour.
7. Take popsicle mold out and twist to pop rocket crayons out.

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Pretty Rosettes with Felt Squares

felt_Rosettes
I love love to wear flowers pinned on my jackets, scarves and shirts. There is something about a flower that just brightens my day, so I’m always tinkering with different ways to make my own flower pins. These rosettes may just be my favorite yet. You wont believe how simple they are to construct and no one will guess that you made them yourself. They are perfect on their own but look spectacular grouped in twos or threes, which is good because once you know how they are made, you wont want to stop at just one.

Things you need:
Felt sheets (9x 12, any color)
Scissors
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Round Pin Backs

Things to do:
1. Cut the larges circle you can out of your felt. The size of the finished flower depends on the circle you start with so start with a big one and then you can adjust from there to create smaller ones.
2. Starting along the edge cut the circle into a spiral with a 1-inch wide strip. Continue to cut around and around until you have a 2 1/2-inch inch diameter circle piece left in the center (don’t cut this out!)
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3. Starting at the beginning of the spiral (what was the outside edge of the circle) start rolling the strip up tightly. When you have rolled about a inch of the strip, squeeze a bead of hot glue onto the bottom (the inner edge) of the bundle and pinch slightly to secure.
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4. Run a bead of glue along the bottom edge of the bundle and continue to roll the strip up, more loosely now. Keep adding glue along the bottom and rolling, getting looser and looser so that the flowers opens up”.
5. When you reach the end and the circular piece. Apply the hot glue to the underside of the flower generously and press the whole circle on to cover the bottom and create the outer most petals.
felt_Rosettes4
6. Apply a bead of glue to the back of the bar pin and press just above the center of the back of the flower. Allow the glue to dry before using.
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