Pinterest motivational challenge 2

Our second challenge was based off of some beautiful artwork on pinterest that was done by melting crayons with a blow dryer, or putting them through a hot glue gun.

I like to refer to this challenge as the "Pinterest motivational failure," what a hot mess. It seemed easy enough....ugh.

Here are a few examples from pinterest:

These are beautiful, aren't they? Let me be the first to tell you that these people have some mad skills that I do NOT posses!

Michelle's piece came out very pretty, although she was not thrilled with it. I love the way that the colors all blended together. She mailed it to me alllll the way from Wisconsin, and now it sits on my craft table here in Virginia. Here is Michelle's, done on a 5x7 canvas:

  

And then there is mine...ugh. Here is where we get to the challenge failure part. Let me start by telling you that I was supposed to complete this project in March. I didn't do it until June...and I never even sent a picture of it to Michelle, because I hated it so much...so this will be the first time she sees it too.

Yuk...What a mess. I didn't even bother taking a good picture of it, just snapped a quick one with my phone so that I can heave this crap into the garbage!

I did mine in a 13x9 baking pan from the dollar store. I thought the metal would heat up more, making the crayons melt faster. Well, it heated up unevenly, and then it was so hot that I couldn't hold it to try and move it around to make to wax drip and run where I wanted it!

The butterfly in the middle is just black card stock...my intentions were that he would have colorful wax drippings running from his wings. Now it just looks like I'm cooking him for dinner or something.

So there you have it, our pinterest motivational challenge #2.

Pinterest motivational challenge 1

Finally!!

As I mentioned in my last post, my friend Michelle and I started this "Pinterest motivational challenge," waaaaay back in March. We both were kind of in a rut and needed to start DOING some of the projects we loved so much!

The first project was supposed to be a melted crayon picture. You know, the ones with the hair dryer that are all over the 'net right now, that look so easy? Yeah not so much!

I'm still not done with mine, and I'm not thrilled with the way it's going, so it may never make it to the blog, but Michelle is awesome and did hers and even mailed it to me from Wisconsin...still didn't get me motivated, ha ha.

The second project involves drawing on white paper or canvas with a white crayon, and then painting over it with watercolors. There are some BEAUTIFUL examples on pinterest.

These are from pinterest and what we used for inspiration:

I'm not that great at drawing to tell you the truth. And the water colors had me all mixed up. I couldn't get the colors I wanted, and they kept mixing when I didn't want them to. I'd LOVE to know how they got that beautiful magenta color on the left.

Here is Michelle's, I love how something so simple can be so sweet and unique! It would look just perfect sitting in a bathroom, on your desk at work or on top of a kid's dresser, just to remind them that you love them :) It's a 2x2 canvas sitting on a teeny tiny little easel! Sooo cute! I think she got both items at Michael's. She's so thrifty too...she didn't want to buy watercolors for just one little project, so she used watered down food coloring!! (I got mine at Walmart for $1 during the back to school sale, and then gave them to Aron and Jason.)

And here is mine...TOTALLY different direction than Michelle's (which is why I love this challenge...being 900 miles away from each other and not seeing it until the finished product lead to BIG surprises! LOVE it!)

Not so much for kiddos ;) I just drew a sugar skull (after about 500 tries, finally got one I liked,) on a piece of white card stock and painted over it with purple, blue and red. The 5x7 canvas frame is from Archiver's.

Now that the first one is done...I can't WAIT to do the next one!!

Pin me!

If you are a DIY'er or a crafter, I'm sure you have already been sucked into the world of Pinterest. A happy little site FULL of crafts, recipes, DIY ideas for your home, outfit ideas, etc etc etc.

These days, if I'm looking for something, I can usually find it on there. For example...my sister, Erin, mentioned seeing a bib style necklace made completely of safety pins in a magazine, but she couldn't remember which one. She tried to find a picture of it by googling, and had no luck. She mentioned it to me, and in 3.2 seconds, I had 30 different safety pin necklaces up on pinterest for her to choose from! This was the prettiest one we found, and the one she is going to try and make:

Another GREAT use for pinterest is the recipes!!! My other sister, Hannah, is a vegetarian and has some lactose intolerance issues. Her boyfriend, Joshie my bad...Joshua ;) has Celiac disease and must be on a gluten free diet. Inviting them over for dinner can be almost impossible sometimes. Pinterest allows me to search for recipes that meet everyones needs, and taste good too (most of the time!)

So...WAY back in March, my good friend Michelle decided that we needed to get MOTIVATED and use our talents more often, instead of just looking at all these awesome ideas on pinterest! She created the "Emily and Michelle get motivated challenge!"

The way that it was supposed to work was that every 2 weeks one of us would pick a project off of pinterest, then both of us would do it, then post pictures to facebook for the other to see (she lives in Wisconsin, and I'm in Virginia...it's a lot harder for us to craft together than it was when I was in Chi-town!)
You can read about when we FIRST started the challenge here...yeah, in March.

Well, props to Michelle, she picked 2 projects and got them done. Me? Well....
(crickets)

Anyway.

My next post will have my FIRST completed pinterest motivational challenge project! And it only took me six months to buy the materials, do the project, and write a post!

Emily and Michelle's GET MOTIVATED challenge!

I have this awesome friend, Michelle, who lives in Wisconsin. We met through a dachshund group while I was living in Chicago and found out that we had a lot more in common than our love for dogs of the long and low variety.

Michelle is an extremely talented quilter, but she also does tons of other really cute crafts that don't involve sewing. We always talk about our craft successes and fails, and what crafts we would love to do, if we just had the motivation!

Well, about a week ago, Michelle gave me a challenge! She suggested that we start giving each other these challenges every 2 weeks or so to motivate each other to do all of the wonderful projects that we see on pinterest, since we are both addicted.

So how does that work? Her being in Wisconsin, and me being in Virginia now? Well...one of us picks a project and then we both do it, not copying the pintrest project, but doing our own version, and then we send each other pictures. There is no winner or loser in this challenge, its just fun and motivational!! I say that, though I have yet to start my first project, which Michelle picked for me WELL over a week ago!

Michelle chose the first project, and I was SO excited! She challenged me to a melty crayon art duel...if you have been on pinterest for any amount of time, I know you have seen these amazing pieces of art, I can only hope that mine turns out that well.

All of the pictures below are from pinterest, stay tuned for pictures of my melty crayon project, as well as Michelle's!!