Fire and Wax and Inspiration

I know, I know...I post about kids and candles and crayons ALL the time.

But seriously, if you knew how much time my kids really spent goofing around with candles, melting crayons, then you would be shocked that I'm this restrained with my posting.

One Saturday morning, while Syd and Matt were at ballet (and picking up holds at the public library, and interlibrary loans at the university library, and dropping off summer camp forms at the Humane Association, etc.--you know the drill!), Will asked to play with the candles and the matches again, the candles and the matches that she and her sister and their friend had just played with last night after their candlelit dinner (turkey bologna and cheese sandwiches with apples and carrots, if you must know how poorly I feed my children's company).

I set her up with the glass plate that we use as a candleholder, but when I saw that she was really more interested in holding crayons to the candle to watch them melt--another common pursuit over here--I moved her to a big mat board left over from Matt's art school days:

Here's the thing, though--as Willow is working, intently and with full concentration, I'm sitting next to her at the table, making sure she doesn't catch her hair on fire and working on a smash book that I'm making Matt for our anniversary (more on that later). So I'm working on my stuff and watching her do her stuff, and suddenly I'm noticing all those nice puddles and pools of crayon wax, and I'm thinking that they look like those old-timey beeswax seals that you see people put on their envelopes to seal them in the movies, and I'm thinking that I'd love to have some sealing wax and those special stamps to play with, and then I'm thinking that, you know, I've actually got some clay stamps that I bet would work pretty much the same as that...

A few minutes later, and now Will and I are BOTH goofing around with candles and wax. At first, my experiments don't go so well--

But after a while, I do believe that I've got that perfect method figured out: 

And that's what I mean when I'm always telling you that my children inspire my craft.

P.S. I've got that crayon sealing wax tutorial up over at Crafting a Green World.