Simply Irresistible

The Commuter's Journal primer on how to play with crayons.

1. Go to Michelle Wards GPP Street Team Crusade no. 21 and read all about making rubbings using crayons. Remember how much you loved to color over textures and make grave rubbings and become madly inspired.

2. Raid your son's room for old flyers he was supposed to throw out and baggies of crayons. 

3. Pull out your store-bought stencils to use for impressions. Begin coloring immediately on a number of backgrounds.

4. Swish on some watered-down acrylic craft paint. Pat with paper towel.

5.  Get very excited and try stenciling first, then rubbing and painting.

6. Find a lavender crayon with glitter and go a little nuts.

7. Try three or four more versions, deciding that random light painting on the bottom layer works the best.

8. Remember the Fiskar texture plates you bought on sale for a reason you no longer recall. Jump up and down with excitement as you pull them out and see all the possibilities.

9. Paint the back of a school memo in shades of yellow and orange. Throw in a shot of plum.

10. Try to distract yourself from rubbing while waiting for the paper to dry. Fail utterly. Rip paper but decide you rather like it.

11. Rub an orange yellow and a carnation pink crayon over a plate with flower impressions. Follow up with navy blue paint. Decide it needs a spot of purple. Blot with a paper towel.

12. Become delirious with the results and use up all the old school flyers. Take apart an envelope and use that. Reluctantly stop, then remember there's only two more weeks of school and lots of paper destined to make its way into your hot little (?) hands.

13. Eat chocolate and blog while thinking about the Revolutionary War cemetery near the library. Discard idea for now and scan pages. Wonder what normal people do for fun.

14. Repeat process.