Melted crayons can be art

For Family Home Evening this week, we took it upon ourselves to create a masterpiece for the blank wall in our living room. Ben has been wanting some kind of abstract art, and I have been wanting to melt crayons, as so many have been doing (according to pinterest). Being the great couple that we are, we found a compromise.

For those of you who would like to repeat this project (which is quite fun, even if you don't have a specific place you plan on hanging it), here is how we did it.

You will need: 1 canvas, 1 blow dryer, a hot glue gun, and as many crayons as necessary. We used up most of a box of 24 and a box of 64.

We decided to take the wrappers off of the crayons (some prefer to keep them on). The easiest way to do this is soak them in water.

Once they are all unwrapped, arrange them in the order you want the colors to be, and glue them to the canvas, with the bottoms along the top edge

The next part is the most fun. Prop the canvas up at an angle with the crayons at the top. Make sure to have newspapers laid on the floor so it's not too messy. Then, start blow drying.

It takes quite awhile--we were blow drying for about an hour. You can manipulate the direction and length of the flow of wax to get your desired look. 

We then flipped ours upside down and hung it on the wall, and this was the result:

Riverwalking

Living in Detroit has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. There aren't decent grocery stores nearby and it's not very walkable. But there are some pretty sweet activities and restaurants, and the Eastern Market is only the best farmer's market this side of anywhere.

Having just had a baby, in the middle of winter, I've found it important to make sure I get out of the house every so often. However, it's been hard to do this without driving for 20 minutes to find a place where I'm comfortable walking around. Then, this past week, I found a little gem tucked away minutes from our apartment.

The Detroit Riverwalk. Right on the Detroit River (go figure), so the whole time you get a nice view of Canada and downtown Detroit. It's surprisingly safe too--there are those "Emergency button" stations every few yards and I even saw a patrol car driving around. Walking with just my baby, I felt perfectly safe and actually quite comfortable. Finally, a pleasant place to spend time outside.

Unfortunately, the day after I discovered the Riverwalk, the temperature dropped far below freezing. But I highly suggest taking a stroll on this bad boy any day the weather will allow.

Tortillas

It could be age, could be hormones, it could just be me being naturally forgetful and trying to look for an excuse. Today I found a package of tortillas on the spare bed. I have no recollection of how they got there. In fact, I have been looking for those tortillas for days. Luckily, I am married to a man who buys a new package of tortillas every time we go to the store. But still... I want to know how they got there. Here are my theories:

1. They were trying to escape into Canada. The plan was to climb out the back window and swim across the river.  But when they realized that we are on the 5th floor, they had to settle for the mere sight of the shores of Windsor, Ontario.

2. Henry put them there. I've been eating a lot of Mexican lately and he was sick of it. He hoped that by hiding the tortillas, I would forget about it and move on to pizza. Unfortunately, he is only 2 months old and has not yet mastered the art of hiding.

3. The other tortillas had grown jealous of my favoritism and pulled a Joseph-in-Egypt-brothers-throwing-him-in-a-hole kind of job. And to think, the next day I settled for a generic brand....