Color Technique: Muslin + Crayons?

Whew!  I realize this post has been almost a year in coming!  I first hinted at this technique almost a year ago when we made a banner for the lemonade stand!  I love how this turned out and have had so many people compliment it. (P.S. It still looks great after wintering outside!)  This technique is one my mother taught us when we were very young and I still have some of the pieces we made.  It takes the lowly crayon to a whole new level!

So without further ado, the muslin crayon technique:

Materials:
Muslin fabric in desired size
Crayons
Permanent Markers
Scrap fabric

Technique:
I like to sketch out my design in pencil first and then go over it with the permanent marker so I know it will turn out how I want it.  You also may choose to place a design from another source under the fabric and trace it on.  Really the permanent marker is optional, but it really helps with definition. 

Color in as desired with the crayons.  After you are completely finished coloring, place a piece of fabric (I use an OLD, thin towel) over the colored side of the art and iron through.  The color may dull or bleed ever so slightly and will likely stain the scrap piece.  And you're done!

Just in the last year we've used this technique for banners (lemonade and craft fair), wall hangings to be framed, and a pillow case!  The possibilities are endless!  I've not yet tried this technique on clothing that would be washed frequently, but if you do would you let me know how it goes?  These have made some fun gifts and the kids love getting involved with it, too!

Mobile Home Time Capsule

This is our rental.   Isn’t it the loveliest thing ever?  Okay, maybe not ever, but I would consider it a miracle!  The story of how we found this place starts back in Alaska.  We felt it was time to move south for many reasons and felt such peace about the move.  It really seemed as though God was throwing open doors  when it came to taking steps to get down here (selling our house, a new job for Josh, etc.) sometimes even faster than comfortable.  When perusing properties down here we began realizing that our priorities were changing and we weren’t caring about the houses so much as the land.  We had learned that renting when you arrive in a new area is best so that you can get to know your way around and what you want in a place before you buy.  So we were keeping our eye open for rentals, but didn’t want to commit to anything sight-unseen.  No worries, though, there seemed to be plenty on the market…

…until we arrived.  I called every realtor and property management in the two nearest counties searching for places, but there were so few available in our price range, and absolutely none that would take our pets.  The waiting list for possibilities was months long.  We even considered renting a trailer, but the one park that would accept our pets would not accept children!  Can you imagine!  I’m afraid they’re a bit of a non-negotiable!  We were at the end of our ropes and could no longer afford to stay in the hotel, so we checked out with no idea where we would sleep that night. 

No place to go and my little guy made me a clover crown

 

So, we went to a park and spent the day playing with the kids.  That afternoon, I got a tip from one of the gazillion realtors I had talked to previously: one of her friends had just bought some property and might have something that would work!  I called the number she gave right away and spoke to a rather confused man on the other end.  You see, he had just typed up an ad and was getting ready to push the publish button when I called and couldn’t figure out how I knew about it already!  Talk about timing!  Well, they showed it to us right away: a 1970s double wide that hadn’t been lived in for over a year.  It needed some cleaning, but was in relatively good shape.  And, if we would take it without them replacing the carpets, they would accept all three of our pets for no deposit or fee!  And the kids were allowed, too! =)

Best part: we’re on a little bit of land in farm country !  There’s several farm stands walking distance away where we  have indulged in the best fresh fruit and veggies at least weekly.  Within a mile is a county park full of trails and a cool, calm river for the hot days.  It takes Josh less than ten minutes to get to work, and our landlords have been truly wonderful and helpful.  They already have a grandparent-like relationship with our children.  We’re still going to look to buy our own plot, but this double wide is going to be harder to leave than I would have thought!  I am just so thankful for this place and wanted to say, “God is so good!”

All taped up and ready to go!

All that to lead us to the fact that this is an old house (but I’m okay with that!)  You know, there’s not a lot out there about sprucing up mobile home rentals where you aren’t going to put in a ton of money to update the look of the place.  I found nothing on painting mobile home walls!  Because they are not your typical spackled walls.  The wallpapers (yes, plural) were really peeling off the walls in the kitchen and I had to do something.  Our landlord asked if I would just paint it and I of course agreed; I enjoy painting!  First, I pried the trim pieces off with the back of a hammer, then I used this water and fabric softener concoction from Fancy Schmancy to get the layers of wall paper off and it worked so great!  Better than I expected! 

Primed

 But then I realized that under the bottom layer of wallpaper was just plywood.  When I tried to get that final layer off it was tearing the wood to shreds, so we determined the best thing to do was to just paint over it after a couple of coats of Kilz.  The color choice was not my own, but I do love how it turned out and how there is finally one un-patterned surface in this abode!  It’s such a resting place for the eyes! 

Most of the walls are wood paneling, but every wall papered area and drawer lining were such interesting prints, I wanted to share with you.  It felt like I was peeling back layers of time and I kept finding more and more patterns!  Some I like more than others.  I’m guessing at the eras, too.  Let me know if you’d switch any of them…

1970s

 

 

 

 

1980s

1990s

 

2010s

 

The only way I know the last one is because I added to the menagerie when I had to replace a couple sections of contact paper.  There are even more I can only see pieces of without really tearing into what's there.   I believe I'm nearly up to twenty different patterns in this house! (Two of the above are not paper, but other surface patterns.)  But wasn’t that kind of fun?  If you had to pick a favorite (or least favorite), which would it be?

The Long, Long Hike: Scavenger Printables!

Have you ever been on a hike and realized it was taking WAY longer than you thought it would?  I mean, sometimes it doesn’t really matter, like when it’s just you and the dog and you don’t have anywhere to be.  I really love hikes like that, they’re so peaceful and you can just explore and be spontaneous!  But, when it’s just you and the dog and the preschooler and the toddler and getting on toward suppertime, it gets a bit more worrisome!  That was our experience yesterday as we set off to explore a new trail system called Dorris Ranch.

Dorris Ranch is not a ranch at all, but rather fourteen individual hazelnut groves, woodland plots and a few open meadows on over 250 acres.  The hazelnut (or filbert) groves date back to 1905 and apparently half of our nations hazelnut trees originated from the Dorris Ranch!  There are miles of winding trails through the groves, but we naturally decided to take the shortest loop (about a half mile) as we planned to visit a new playground as soon as we were done.   Thankfully our adventure boy is in this “be prepared for anything” stage and I’m so glad he is!  He insisted on bringing his backpack with water and trail mix and we tucked a park map in there, too. Though the colored pencils and bungee cord were not found to be as helpful, we were prepared.

The map was nice to have, though I may not have looked at often enough.  We totally missed our cut off trail and took a loop that ended up being well over two miles.  With the wee ones in sandals and it getting close to dinner time.  I was bracing myself for the meltdowns, but attempted to be proactive in motivating them and distracting them from their discomfort.  And you know what?  It worked!  And I feel like they learned stuff, or at the very least, practiced what they already knew.  I was so pleased I thought I’d share with you in the rare case that you might find yourself in a similar predicament one day.  But probably not.  Most people actually read the maps they pick up for the hike!  Haha! Oh, well, it was an adventure all right!

So first off, we took a lot of breaks.  But not as soon as I heard a complaint.  Well, toddlers don’t really do waiting very well, so she did get carried a fair portion.  But when our bigger hiker thought he could go no farther, we would pick the farthest spot we could see to choose as a resting place.  Then we would sit down, take a drink of water and a handful of trail mix and I got to explain how muscles get stronger by being used and how we need to feed them the protein from the nuts we were eating (and the meat later on).  We kept that new playground as a goal when they didn’t want to get moving again.

As we trudged along we made up a sort of scavenger hunt of a few things from the schoolbooks this morning: shapes and colors.  This was such a great motivator as it kept them engaged in their surroundings and seeking to get farther down the trail to discover the next surprise!  Here are our results for the shapes.  Some of them are a bit of a stretch, but given the circumstances, I thought we did quite well:

Circles, ovals, triangle, square, rectangle, octagon.  At one point our loop followed a paved bike path so we were able to find many geometric shapes.

And the colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, grey, brown.

Oh, and giving points made it extra exciting.  We weren’t really even counting up to anything, but they were points!  We also had the random teaching moments like how the hazlenuts we saw lying on the ground were the hazelnut tree’s seeds and how the whole tree grew from the little nut-seed.  We talked about how the noisy wind bending the trees’ boughs was like God: powerful and strong, but invisible.  We can see what He’s doing but not God Himself.  We even took time (too late) to look over the map together and begin to talk about how they work and how they help us.  Yup, I was pretty much just preaching to myself there.  And random excitement: we found a really tame parakeet.  Pretty sure those aren’t wild around here.  I tried to catch him, but he didn’t think that was a good idea.  Though he let me get close enough to touch him several times.  I didn’t even know what to do!  I’m sure he’s someone’s escaped pet! 

At last we saw the truck!  And it was all downhill from there (literally and figuratively!)  We made it, and with no meltdowns!  Thank You, God!  And for those of you curious, we found a lovely playground and stayed there until dusk and the little ones sure slept good that night!  I did get to thinking these scavenger hunts might be fun to do even when not necessary.  So I whipped up some check lists to use on our next hike to help keep the focus. Maybe I'll keep a pen to cross the words off or better yet: stickers!  If you'd be interested in them, you can just click the photo to enlarge it and print a couple to keep in your vehicle for your next journey!  Happy learning and adventuring!