The Wonder of Crayola

Gotta love it! MESS FREE!

On a recent trip to Florida, a whole new world was opened up to me, and holding the key was a delightful 4 ½ year old (because, as I quickly figured out, being 4 ½ is MUCH different from being just 4!) by the name of Paige. Paige introduced me to the wonderful world of Crayola Color Wonder Markers and Finger-paints, to which I will be eternally in her debt! On my trip, I had the opportunity to spend a serious amount of playtime with Paige and her twin brother Andrew who are the niece and nephew of my good friend Della. I will comment later on the rigors of entertaining twins, but for now, I must tell you of my experience with these amazing products!

The experience began, simply enough, with Paige declaring that it was time to color. We’d already spent a good part of the morning building a Linkin’ Logs tower to house our horses and their food, and it was time to move on to something else. As we approached the coloring table, conveniently positioned only 18 or so inches from the ground, I noticed that they had some of these as yet undiscovered products at the table. I exclaimed interest and Paige—always the little teacher—gave me a tutorial on the magic of Color Wonder. For those of you who don’t have the opportunity to peruse the coloring book aisles on a regular basis, I will explain. Color Wonder markers are specially designed to work only on specially treated Color Wonder paper. The markers are all white and, as you color, the colors magically appear on the page! The markers are labeled so you know what color you’re coloring with just in case you didn’t want to color the grass purple—but that isn’t always a big deal to a 4 ½ year old and I must say, we had some purple grass!

Another interesting characteristic of this paper—as Della helped me to discover! Good ole, Della! Never one to leave any stone unturned!—is that you can’t color outside the lines. I guess only the picture printed on the page is treated, because she tried and it only left a wet mark on the page. I’m sure someone is out there thinking that such a feature only stifles the child’s creativity, but for a rule-follower like me, I thought it was GREAT! (Notice I said that Della had to show me this—because it never occurred to ME to try to color outside the lines! That’s why we’re such great friends. Della is always making me color outside the lines—and then I’m sure that sometimes she wishes she never showed me the coloring book in the first place!)

But I digress, back to the story. Paige sagely informed me that the markers only work on the Color Wonder coloring books. She then broke out the big guns—the finger-paints—and the real adventure began, for the finger-paint is simply a tray with little pots of what seems to be petroleum jelly—but petroleum jelly it is not! The finger paint works in the same way as the markers. You get a little glob (not too much, I was instructed) on the tip of your finger and simply paint on the page and the color magically appears. Then Paige told me that you could just wipe the excess on your clothes when you want to change colors. How convenient! Let me tell you, it was an eye-opening experience for this boring ole’ adult! Once I got home, I couldn’t wait to get some of my very own! Oh, Crayola it is you that’s wonderful! Yet again, you’ve filled my world with such color and beauty. I thank you from the bottom of my color-drenched heart.