The Duped Project 9/50: Re-Crayons

First, my apologies for my absence. We got a new puppy. Bad excuse, but it's the truth. I'll have a lot of catching up to do to get back on my 50 projects in 365 days plan!

Normally I start out my posts with a rant about why the commercially available product is A) Hazardous B) Unhealthy C) Overpriced D) All of the Above. Crayons, however, are rather wholesome. They are non-toxic, inexpensive, and generally fun for all ages. There are brands with a higher wax-to-pigment ratio (that's fancy talk for they don't write as well), but even the super-cheapo crayons that they give your kid to distract them at chain restaurants aren't all that bad.

The dupe here is that they break. Lots. It doesn't matter if you get the big thick ones, the triangular ones, the ones with the sharpener. They are going to break into a million little pieces that even the smallest hands can't use. It's wasteful, I say!

Have you seen the commercials for the Crayola Crayon Maker? Here it is:


It's all jazz man. Don't get me wrong, I would love to play with one for a couple hours, and I know that the bright colors and shiny national marketing strategy are just what the doctor ordered for a bored kid. Unfortunately, those same cool factors are what's driving the price up to a suggested retail value of $35 plus tax. We can do something ALMOST as cool at home, with stuff you probably already have.

You'll Need:
Compartmental Baking Pan (muffin tin, mini muffin tin, silicon teddy bear candy mold, you name it!)
Crayons that have known better days
Exacto knife or sharp scissors (if your crayons still have paper, optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 200 F while you take all the paper off. I had a lot of crayons that came out of the package broken (grumble grumble) so I used my exacto knife to slice carefully down the crayons long-ways.

2. Break bigger chunks into shorter pieces (small enough to fit into your pan's compartments). Overfill to make sure that your crayons are big enough - the melted wax will fill in all the spaces between your pieces.

3. Group however you want! Some ideas:

• Rainbow Swirls (beautiful, but not too practical to color with)
• Cool/Warm Colors (cool makes beautiful water! stay in the lines)
• Similar Colors (this is what I did, since I had a lot to work with)
• Go the Crayola route and do silly themes. (Brown, pink and white are "neopolitan." Cornflower, Goldenrod and Periwinkle make "bouquet")

4. Melt in the oven for around 20 minutes. Be very careful removing the pan, especially if your compartments are very full or you'll get some unintentional swirlage.

5. Let cool. It takes a long time, especially in rigid (not silicone) pans, but eventually they will pop out if you turn the pan over and deliver a swift hit to each compartment.

We used a mini muffin tin and grouped similar colors so that my daughter could use her new crayons on her coloring books without accidentally getting green in Dora's hair or orange on Elmo. They turned out great, and she loves them. I will never throw away a broken crayon tip again. Photo time! These are some of my favorites yet:

What I learned:

• Crayon brand name and quality makes little difference when recycling. The only difference? the cheap wax rises and is much paler on paper.
• You don't have to use a flexible silicon pan, but you do have to cool a long time with a metal pan.
• Kids think round crayons are cool

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Update: Re-Crayon'd 2.0

Several months ago, I found a cheap ($1, to be precise) ice cube tray at Target. Ice cubes? Nay! Crayons! They turned out even better than the round ones, and were much easier to get out of the pan. Plus my crayons automatically come with 5 perfect points on them now. :-) Happy mommy, happy kiddos.

The Duped Project 7/50: Party Decorations

Lots of coordination, lots of cash

When my oldest turned two, I did the Party Superstore thing. I went to the warehouse-style, we've-got-it-all store and spent nearly $60 to get cake-toppers, balloons, streamers, plastic ware, banners and table toppers in her theme. Honestly, it just wasn't worth it. The guests probably noticed, thought "Oh cute," then moved on. All my coordinating colors were not worth all that cash, cute as they were.

More importantly, I was really disappointed in the store itself. Yes, the prices and selection were better than just about anywhere else, but that's to be expected of a nation-wide party decoration chain. But the service -- oh, the service.

Me: If I pick up the balloons the day before, will they stay inflated for, say, 24 hours?

Party Store Employee: Oh yeah. no problem.

12 hours later

In their defense, they replace the balloons for free, but only after I called 3 times and demanded to speak to a manager, and after that manager broke policy to help me. Also, when I went to pick them up, they were not ready (though I called ahead) and the staff was giving me the "Oh, you're the b*tch" look. Lovely. I was definitely duped. 

Then I realized: I am a graphic designer. What am I doing? I can do this jazz myself. Shoot, I could do this if I wasn't a designer. All it takes is a little ingenuity. After all, what's more impressive: spending money on coordinated, copyrighted characters on paperboard-and-staples centerpieces OR doing it all yourself? Oh, I think you know.

When I decided to throw a baby shower for a couple friends who are expecting, I did all the decorations myself, and I decided to share all those decorations with you, in photos and files that you can print out for your own baby shower. You only have to pay what I did. Nothing.

For photos, ideas, and free printable cupcake toppers and banner pieces, read on!

Viral Word Art

As a designer who loves to make art out of words, I love the new online trend of quotes in images. You see it all over social networking, especially facebook and pinterest. I thought I would throw my hat in the ring this morning, and start a new series of exclusively online art for this purpose. To see all my "viral word art," click the label on the left of this blog.

This image has been created of royalty-free images, and is for your use. Share it! You're welcome.

Base Photo credit: Arnout Van Scherpenzeel, Font credit: Billy Argel

The Duped Project 5/50: Cloth Diapering

CLOTH DIAPERS?! YUCK!

Ok, now that's out of the way. Take a deep breath and let go of what you think cloth diapers are. Clear your mind of the poop and pee fest that you were thinking about. Come back to base camp. Are you there? Good!

Poop and pee?!

I have two little girls under 3 years old. The older is STILL not potty trained (we've been working on it since March) and so I have 2 girls in diapers. Since I am only semi-crunchy, I still use disposable diapers - usually for longer trips out of the house, or when laundry piles up. But even with two littles and all their messes, I change at least 10 cloth diapers each day. I believe this makes me an expert. I have been cloth diapering for almost 2 years (including CDing at home when I was working full-time...don't let anyone tell you it's not worth it if you work!). Why, you may ask?

• Cloth diapers are not the safety pin and washcloth system that you might think they are. Modern cloths are equipped with velcro, snaps, microfiber, fleece liners, etc and come with a variety of awesome accessories like diaper sprayers, reusable dry pail liners, and eco-friendly super detergents that could clean a zoo cage liner to cuddle status.
• The environmental impact of disposable diapers is horrifying. 1/3 of the non-biodegradable trash in our landfills is diapers. It's not certain, but some estimates say that a disposable diaper may take between 250-400 years to decompose.
• Disposables are full of awful stuff. Dioxin, for example. Banned in every country but the US and touted as the most carcinogenic compound by the EPA.
• You. Will. Save. Major dough. I saved $600 last year, when I was diapering one child. I am reusing those same diapers on #2, saving me hundreds more this year. For a full breakdown, check out this post from my other blog.
• Cloth diapers are adorable. Yes that is a major factor! Of course! Check out the photos after the jump for proof positive.

I can't reproduce these stats from the Real Diaper Association because they are copywrited (???) but this fact sheet (click the image!) will take 10 minutes to read if you take your time. It's the best information on why to use cloth diapers that I have ever seen (and I've seen a lot). Please read this!

I would say that disposable diapers are most definitely a dupe. Wanna know how my family outsmarts this one? More after the jump!

Upcycled Twirlers

Upcycling! It's a buzz word. At least it is in my head. And now that it's such a big deal to me, I think twice before I throw anything away. For example, a few weeks ago, I had to buy my 2 year old some bandaids, and of course she had to have the Disney Princess ones. It occured to me as I checked out that she had no idea what was inside the box, and just liked the box itself. And who says that's a bad thing?

How many times have you heard a mom say, "I don't know why we buy them expensive toys, because they just want to play with the box!" I say, let them play. Here's how I used the princesses from our band-aid box. These "Twirlers" are so easy to make, you can probably do the craft with your child!

You can do this with anything that is made of paperboard. So many products are printed with our kids favorite characters, and this could be so fun! Bandaids, cereal, yogurt packaging, etc. I think we'll start a collection of "twirlers."




You need:

• Paperboard cut-outs of something awesome (no bigger than a few inches wide/tall)
• Colorful plastic straws
• Transparent tape
• Clear contact paper/laminating sheets (optional)
• Scissors (pointy sharp ones)

The steps are so simple, it's hardly worth writing down, but since I didn't take pictures, here I go:

1. Cut out around the character. 

2. Sandwich the cut out in contact paper/lamination

3. Cut out the lamination, leaving 1/4-1/2" of lamination around the edge

4. Cut 2 1"slits down one end of the straw, directly across from each other, like so:

Cut on dotted lines

5. Slide character into slits and secure on both sides with tape

6. SPIN! (See diagram below)

My sweet girl loved this. We call ours "dancing princess twirl wands" (what a mouthful!). I got some great shots of her, then accidentally deleted them (doh!) but these will do. She's still playing with them 2 days later, which outlived many things Santa brought. Don't chuck the box, mom! If you make these, please let me know! farbeyonddesigns@gmail.com. Thanks!

Quilted Wall Hanging for Nursery

Finished Wall Hanging in the Nursery

Although this project will not be for sale on Far Beyond, I wanted to include a step by step documentation of the process. If the quilted wall hanging is something that customers want, I would be able to print my art on fabric and put it as the center panel, much like the big heart in this piece. Sorry the photo quality is so bad - I was too lazy to pull out the real camera, and resorted to using my phone.

I have a super-cute sheet set for my 2 year old in all kinds of funky heart and stripe prints. It came with 3 pillow cases, and after just a couple washes, one of them got a small tear from the machine (I said cute, not high quality). I could have stitched it up, but since I really didn't need all three of the pillow cases, I stashed it away in the scrap pile along with the coordinating bed skirt that doesn't work on my daughter's bunk beds.

When I found out baby 2 was a girl, I knew for sure that I wanted the girls to share a room when they were old enough, so I decided to re-use the baby linens from my first daughter with a new twist. When they combine rooms, their decor will match, and in the meantime I saved a pretty penny on crib sheets. For the twist, I dove in the scrap pile and found the pillowcase and bed skirt.

I started by turning the bed skirt into a very simple valance with some $1 ribbon and a $3 curtain rod I got at Walmart (why oh why do they have to be so temptingly cheap?). I also recovered an IKEA pillow in the same fabric for the rocking chair and added that to a pillow I already had from the old nursery bedding.

Pillows & Valance

After the paint, bedding and furniture came together, I saw an opportunity for something to hang over the crib. At first I hung a large framed print. What was I thinking? Baby will pull that down on herself in a hot minute. Something fabric this way comes...

Quilts have a rich heritage in American culture, and also in my own history. My grandmother, God rest her sweet soul, was my teacher in all things sewing. Every time I pull out the sewing machine, or even just a needle and thread, I hear her advice. Some of our favorite projects were quilts. Starting with simple quilts where my contribution was only to cut the squares that had been marked by Grandma, all the way up to my last quilt that I completed on her old sewing machine: a bed cover for my first dorm room.

Years later, when she passed, my grandfather mailed me a quilt that she had made after I had left home and gotten married. The note from Grandpa said that she made the quilt for my first baby. Though Grandma was gone before my first child was born, I treasure the pictures of my daughter, only two weeks old, smiling on a backdrop of fabric swatches, cut loving for her by her great-grandmother.

Great-Grandma's Quilt

Looking at my coordinating fabric scraps and thinking about how, to me, a quilt is the perfect way to welcome a new baby, I pulled out the paper and pencil. I wanted something small, with ribbon loops on the top to hang it from a matching curtain rod like it's predecessor, the valance. I took inventory, chopped up the 3 different fabrics that made up the pillow case and based all my measurements on the size of the big heart and the width of the smallest scraps. The heart was 15 inches square and the scraps were 7 inches at their narrowest point. To make my plan work, all the surrounding smaller squares would be 5 inches, making the math simple.

Check out the the photos after the jump to see the steps I took: from an old pillowcase and bed skirt to what I hope to be a treasure for my newest daughter. Thanks for reading!