If at First,

Reflecting over the past two months of this new blog, I have been amazed not only by your online responses, but how you have gathered and sent material for use in future posts! Though it started with candles from work as well as a whole box in the mail from my mom, I've since been offered old cards, pumpkins, jars, bath bombs, crayons and lots more candles just from writing about my little adventures in home-crafted goods. My hope is that this encourages you to find more things to make out of what is right around you, because it has a way of spreading beyond itself, beyond you and the confines of the space you give it.

Another notable benefit of this blog for me has been learning to take creative risks where there is nothing to lose but the material I am working with. Here is my example of a risk I took this week.

My aunt sent me home with a bucket of crayons, which I decided to do some experimentation with. I started by pealing and sorting them by color--a very clear-cut, low-risk activity to warm up with. I also made this a literal warm-up activity outdoors, since it's been warmer in the sun than in my house these days. 

Though intending to do my own thing, I first did a little research on how one goes about doing crayon art. I tried using a glue gun, but did not like the results. It's like shooting color with a dribbly water gun. Next I tried the hairdryer method, but maybe I had the wrong type of crayons or the wrong type of hairdryer. I did not get satisfactory results this way either. 

So, back to my tried and true melting method--the double boiler. This was also a fun way to mix different crayons together into a cohesive color.

The melted crayons dried so quickly that I was not able to get it all out of the jar in time to use. 

Next attempt, I added candle wax to extend the melted state longer. And now it was time to try something on a larger scale.

I wanted to see if I could make temporary molds to pour into on a canvas, so I dampened some shredded paper and molded it into a few random shapes to fill with the colored wax.

Pleased with where I'd arrived, I saved the remainder for another rainy day. I continued to melt various colors into the same pot with about four or five candle ends each. As I poured them over the canvas, I liked the results even when certain colors overstepped their bounds. But then a black crayon fell into the mix (out from hiding in the blue crayon box). I continued to mix and pour with it, but in the end, I wish I had cleaned it out and started over. Though experimentation requires embracing such mistakes as part of the process, in this case, I gave the direction of the experiment over to a mistake even when I saw I didn't like where it was going. 

As a result, the more layers I poured on, the less I cared about how it would end up. 

The only interesting thing left to do was to crack the whole thing apart and look at what lay underneath.

So this is what I have to show for my week of experimentation. I'm not keeping count of what I am discovering doesn't work, but neither did Edison.

And I encourage you, as you have encouraged me, to keep trying new things, enjoying whatever degree of success or failure it may bring!