Rainbow Art for a Cold Winter's Day

Daughter-in-law Katie saw a picture of framed colored pencils and thought it would be a good craft project to make for son Patrick, his wife Sarah, and their daughter, Addy.  I happened to have a huge bag of old colored pencils (people have been known to make fun of my utter inability to throw away writing utensils...in this case, I had the last laugh).  We gave them a new, sharp point, found, miraculously, a deep and long Goodwill picture frame. Alas, no picture was snapped!  After the art was done, we both decided that we wanted a colored pencil picture, too.  My drawer of old pencils is full, but no more colored pencils could be found.  A trip to good old Walmart proved to be fruitful.  The frame is a Canopy brand frame that has openings for three 4" x 6" pictures.  Once the multi-picture inset is removed, the frame is the perfect size for colored pencils.  We found packages of 72 RoseArt colored pencils (already sharpened!) that were perfect!  We glued them on a piece of watercolor paper, snapped the frame back on, and....done!  Not as whimsical and vintage as the original one Katie made with the old, various sized pencils, but the new pictures have a modern, colorful, all-in-a-row soldier quality.  About 55 pencils are needed - we didn't use the dull colored ones (I have them saved, however - in the pencil drawer).  Life is too short to use dull colored pencils.  All in all, each picture costs about $20 to make.  Daughter Ellen, the girl who has always loved rainbows, really loved the picture that Sarah opened.  I am going to visit Ellen in a couple of weeks and will bring along a glue gun, a black frame, and a box of sharpened colored pencils.   A good craft project to brighten a very cold January!  Jerilynn