My Little Pony Playmat and Take-a-long Barn

I made a playmat for a 3 year old's birthday.  It can be used with My Little Pony or those toob animals or whatever kind of animals you want!

Here is a green pasture surrounded by a fence.  The fence is made from felt and pipe cleaners (or as some call them, chenille stems).  They took FOREVER to sew and to get to stand upright.  

The fence gates swing open.  And they move around, so the play mat still rolls up and fits in the take-a-long barn.  Like the spoon?  haha. 

I left a spot at the back of the fence for the barn to fit.  The barn opens up in the green pasture for the ponies to play in the paddock.

They can leave the paddock through the gates and walk along the stone path to cross the bridge over the "raging" river.  The river is 3 layers of wired ribbon sewn with a meandering stitch down the middle.

On the river banks, the ponies can explore and find some hidden gems.  (yes, i know star fish aren't in rivers, but....)

They can also hang out in the field with the wild flowers.

The barn closes up and Velcros closed, in case there is a storm, or it gets cold at night.

Side door for the farm to get in a muck out the stalls if needed...

A lovely little sunflower

Yes, the ponies prefer to be outside in the sunshine, so sometimes the cobwebs build up and spring cleaning is required.  But don't fear, there is a shovel and a rake to help reach the high cobwebs...

This project kept growing and growing.  It started out pretty simple, but I couldn't leave well enough alone.  

Check out these two tutorials for "building" details:

Smashed Peas and Carrots: Fold n Go Pony Farm

UK Lass in the US:  Fabric Dollhouse Tutorial

Sesame Street Crayons

Have you ever thought of making crayons?  And by making, I mean melting down crayons and pouring the wax into molds.  

Do a quick search on etsy for sesame street crayons - $4.50 (plus shipping) for six crayons.  Are you kidding?  A 24 pack of crayola was just selling in back to school sales for 25 - 50 cents.  

I picked up a Sesame Street mold off ebay, for maybe $6, including shipping.  One character uses about 2 crayons (cookie monster and oscar were closer to 4).  So for less than $10 ($6 for the mold and $2.50 for 5 packs of crayons), I made  about 40 characters.  

I did grover in red because he kind of looks like elmo.  And there's a lot of red in a box of crayons.  And purple and orange too.  I had soo many ernies!  He's the only orange one.  Yellow had big bird and bert.  Blue was Cookie Monster and Grover.  I think I only got 4 Oscar the Grouchs...not much green in a box.

Anyway, I packaged them a so that there was only one color in each pack, but 5 characters...although some had two Berts or Grovers b/c they were different colors.

My two year old snapped most of their heads off pretty quick, but whatever. I had fun making them!

P.S.  There are lots of tutorials on making crayons.  Here's what you need to remember:  1. don't get the wax wet.  2. Crayola Crayons begin to soften at around 105 degrees Fahrenheit and they have a melting point between 120-147 degrees Fahrenheit. The melting point is the same for all regular Crayola Crayons, however, because of the density and amount of pigment included in various crayons, the thickness or viscosity of the melted mixture will vary.  Put your crayons in a baby food jar on a candle warmer (mine was the perfect temp) or on a tray in your oven or toaster oven on it's LOWEST setting...mine was warm which is around 150 degrees F. I found that if I took my jars out of the oven and let them cool about 4 - 5 minutes - until I could pick them up with my bare hands - the wax would pour perfectly; if the wax was too warm, it would run down the side of the jar and make a mess. 3. This is messy.  If you are going to freak out about getting wax on your pot holder, you might want to skip this project. 4.  Crayons cool faster in the fridge 5.  Layers don't always work out so well, depending on how cool you let them get.   Some of mine separated, others would out perfectly - see what works for you with one or two before doing an entire tray!

Art Journalling: Mermaids and Under the Sea

Another day, another swap :)  Not much to say about this one.  I had to start a new journal (which was my first venture into coptic stitch binding - Sea Lemon has a great tutorial on youtube).  It came out ok, not the greatest work ever, but it'll hold up :)

I really like this spread.  I'm still "stealing" other peoples art, but at least I'm mixing it up a bit, changing a bit here and adding something different over there.  Ha.  Maybe soon I'll be inspired to draw something all my own!  

I don't know why the left side scanned blurry...I don't like the green seaweed and the wave above it was my attempt at coloring the background.  ek.  so that's when the whole background got colored in three shades of blue and blended...my blending pencil doesn't work so great with my colored pencils (crayolas from my teen years) but until I invest in something fancier, I'll use what I have :)  

Even with all the i-don't-like-this parts of spread, overall I do like it, and that's what really matters, right?

Another Swap: Doodle Dandy

I joined yet another swap for drawing.  This time around, I had to answer 16 questions in doodles :) 

The Questions:

1. What is your favorite type of weather?

2. What kind of pets do you have?

3. What is your favorite food?

4. What does your perfect day consist of?

5. What is something you collect?

6. Which season is your favorite?

7. What is the weather like today?

8. What is your favorite color?

9. Where do you want to travel?

10. What's your favorite beverage?

11. What means the most to you?

12. What's one of your hobbies?

13. What is your favorite thing about summer?

14. What is something you couldn't live without?

15. What do you look like?

16. What is your favorite animal?

So there you go!  I think my answers are pretty self explanatory!  

Another Swap Art Journal: Magazine and List, List, List!!

I joined another swap.  This time for a Mini Handmade Art Journal.  I missed the first in the series, so this time around, I had to make a mini journal.  I forgot to take a picture of the journal :(  The first round was to find a beautiful picture in a magazine, cut it out, and make 

that the center of your art journal page.  I decided to put my own art in my journal to make up for the missed round. 

Here's what I came up with:

The part of the left, I totally stole from someone.  I mean, I drew this myself, but totally not my idea!

For round #2, the prompt was: List, List, List! Your journal spread must include a list somewhere. Again, I stole this idea from someone, but at least I filled it in with my own tasks and sketches :)  

This journal belongs to emilymay42 of swap-bot.  She hasn't logged in for a few months (and never actually participated in this swap series, but started a different one, so....) but whatever, I just wanted to draw something!  I'll keep passing this one on!

Well, until the next round starts...Happy Swapping!