melted crayon art

I've recently become addicted to a blog called Whatever, and as I was reading back through the entries (yes I managed to read all of them!) I found one about a project the blog owner, Meg Duerksen, had done with her kids called Melted Crayon Art. I'm not usually into crafts, but this one caught my eye with all the bright colours, and it seemed simple enough that even I could manage it! All you need for it is crayons in whatever colours you want, a canvas, a glue gun and a hair dryer. I managed to find everything quite easily - except for the crayons. I ended up going into four or five stores and they'd either have only one packet of crayons or none! Anyway, here's my attempt at Melted Crayon Art:

Start by glueing your crayons to the top of your canvas in the order you want them in.

Do this until they go right across the top of the canvas.

Turn your hair dryer on and hold close to the crayons until they start to melt.

It was really hard to get my hair dryer in the right position to get the colours to go straight down. There was a little bit of splattering to the side, although at this early stage it didn't matter too much.

And done! I'm really happy with how it turned out, but I think if I did it again I'd take out the darker colours and have more of the brighter colours.

yellow fields

I went for a drive after work the other day to get some things from a nearby shopping centre. On my way I passed a few paddocks full of yellow flowers - canolla I'm guessing. The bright yellow of the flowers cheered me up so much. I tried to get a picture, but this was all I could get. Still you can get the idea from it!



a romp in gisborne

I took Lucy, my 9 year old Jack Russell, for a walk the other day. We went for a wander in the local town, Gisborne which is about 10 minutes drive from where I live, and for a little walk through the park there.
I would walk around where I live, but it's boring....plus Lucy has recently picked up the habit of stopping everytime a car goes past us. So I decided to take a few photos while I was walking around.

This is the Anglican Church (St Paul's) in Gisborne. I really like this little church, it reminds me of the little old fashioned churches in England. I like the contrast between the yellow of the Wattle Tree and the church.

How pretty!

This is another church I found on my wanders. It's the Presbertarium Church (St Andrew's) which I never actually knew existed!

And another view. The leaves are just starting to come back onto the trees.

How beautiful are these flowers? When I saw them I thought they looked fake at first, they were just so perfect looking.

And a close up!

Then we headed down to the park. We found this unusual statue (or it could have been a water fountain at some stage). As you can see it's got the hands reaching out and fish all over the base. I'm not sure exactly what it's for or what the meaning is behind it, but it looks interesting. If anyone knows please let me know! I couldn't find anything in my searches.

We found this tree that had a big branch low to the ground. It'd be a good place to sit and read. Lucy was a bit reluctant to get on it, but I won out lol

And she really really didn't want to go in there. Can you see that worried look on her face?

I was sitting down on the low branch when I realised the hole in the trunk looked like a love heart. Very cute. Oh and do you like my shoes? lol

She loved romping through the green grass. Lots of places to explore and sniff! At this point we were walking near a playground and there were some kids on a squeaky swing. Of course she had to know what was going on.

More exploring.

And on the way home. She was so exhausted that she just curled up on the seat straight away. Usually she's bouncing all over the place and trying to look out the windows.

Snooze time.

Hi!

I'm Claire! Welcome to my new blog. I've been inspired so much lately by the blogs that I've been reading (like Whatever and Design Mom and Sweet Verbena) that I've decided to start my own blog. They've made me, for the first time in my life, want to make things - craft or sewing and to start taking photographs of life around me. So here we are, we'll just have to see how it goes, but I hope you enjoy it!