Today we are doing a super fun project for the kids....The best part is that it is something we parents will enjoy as well. I know I sure did! Hopefully you have seen these before. If not that is okay, I hope you like this tutorial.
These beautiful melted crayon works of art are
literally all over the Internet. They are being sold on
Etsy and some for ridiculous amounts of $$. They really are not hard to make and are really fun. They do take some time to make them......Well, at least my first one did. After the first one I came up with a few tricks. I have put together an easy step by step tutorial with photos so that you can make one of your very own:
(I forgot to take a photo of the hair dryer and the embossing gun!)
The supplies you will need: you will need an art canvas, any size is fine, a hot glue gun & glue sticks, a hair dryer or heat gun/embossing gun, lots of crayons, newspaper, old wrapping paper or cardboard boxes, slick paint or acrylic paint, and masking tape. These last two supplies are only needed if you choose to add words to the canvas.
For each 11″x14″ canvas, I used crayons from 2 boxes of 64 crayons, 2 boxes of 48 and some extras from a box of 24. The only thing that I would do differently next time is that I would cut the bottom 1" of the crayon off and use that portion of the crayon. A whole crayon was way too much crayon for an 11"x14" canvas with wording. It ended up leaving a lot of crayon in the wrapper. So I ended up going back after my boys and I were finished melting the crayons and trimmed the crayons down once they had cooled. I don't know about you but I hate waste and I just couldn't in my right mind hang them knowing that each canvas had crayons that were well over 3/4 still useable.
Step 1: The first thing I did was paint the words I had chosen on all 3 of my canvas' (this is optional). Then you pick out the colors that you want to use. This was easiest for me after I sorted them by color and then sorted them by name. This made arranging them on the canvas much easier. You then lay them out on the canvas in the pattern that you choose. We did ours in a sort of rainbow pattern. You do this until you run out of space on the canvas.
Step 2: Using your glue gun, put a line of glue across the crayons (if you want a certain part showing, like the label, make sure to put the glue on the opposite side of the crayon). Quickly place the crayon onto canvas starting at one end and continue in the order that you have them arranged, as shown below, with tips facing down or sideways. This depends on how you have them arranged. You need to work quickly because the crayon cools the glue very quickly.
This is how the canvas looked after 10 minutes.
(notice the splatter on the paper behind the canvas)
Step 3: Line your work area with the covering of your choice. I used an old roll of wrapping paper. I pulled a 10' foot piece and then folded it in half and taped it to my wall. The reason for this is because if you use the high setting on your blow dryer it will eventually splatter off the canvas and you really don't want melted crayon on the walls and floor. (I learned this the hard way from the first canvas I did). I gave myself about 3' feet on each side of my canvas that was covered work area. If you have chosen to add wording to your canvas you will need to tape it off. Be sure the ends of tape are securely rubbed to the canvas. You will end up with some run under the tape but I simply used my embossing gun to melt some of the wax onto those spots. Now they look like all of it was done purposefully. You then place the canvas against the wall & start blow drying. I started out on high & warm settings on my hair dryer. You have to experiment a little to see how your hair dryer works with melting the wax.
This is about the time I got my embossing gun out. It melted the crayons much easier & then I could go back and make them run how I wanted with the blow dryer.
(The five year old was much better with the hair dryer than I was!)
When I did mine I concentrated on one area at a time & worked my way across the canvas. It took me about 5-10 minutes on each area. Aim the heat towards the bottom 1" of the crayons (where the tips are or end, if you chose to cut the crayons and use short ones like I did with the other 2 canvas' we did). Once the wax starts melting, move the dryer around as needed to prevent splattering and to get the wax to go in the pattern you wish.
I have seen some of these where the wax runs straight down the canvas. We chose to make ours a little different. So we not only chose a different crayon layout on each canvas but, we also used the hair dryer to melt the crayon colors in different directions and into each other. We ended up making new colors in the process.
Somehow I ended up with a lowercase "I" instead of a capital "I". I am going to fix this tonight. I think it may have had to do with the fact that my husband was on the phone and both my boys were getting very anxious to do theirs so they kept getting into everything and I wasn't paying attention to what I was painting!!
(This is my youngest boys crayon art. He decided he did not want the crayons to remain in his canvas. So we just pulled them off. Then he melted the crayon in the other direction so that it covered the entire canvas.)
What a smart cookie!
It took me about an hour to make it across the first canvas. I wanted to make sure I got all the colors to melt sufficiently. Oddly enough as it is, some colors melt much faster than others ~ Red melts very quickly as do the Blues. Yellows were particularly slow in melting. I think I could have made a cup of coffee or two before they started to melt.
Step 4 (optional): After I got all of the colors to melt, I decided to go back over certain colors that I wanted to go a little further down the canvas. I also made sure that the colors wrapped around the edges of the canvas. I knew that it wouldn't matter to my boys that the edges of the canvas were white but just the thought drove me nuts. Can we say OCD??!!
Voila! You now have a really fun piece of handmade art to hang on your wall. You can try this with different color patterns instead of a rainbow. There are so many different ways to arrange your crayons that the possibilities are endless.
The reason I chose to do "Inspire, Dream, Create" on the canvas' is because I tell my boys, "To look for inspiration in everything", "Don't be afraid to Dream big", and "To Create with all your heart because your creations show just how Special God made you".
I hope that you enjoy this tutorial and that it helps you and your little ones to create not only wonderful memories but wonderful art pieces for you to enjoy as well.
