A lot of people use this site for planning their future wedding, home decor, and baby adventures, and the ides never leave the confines of the internet. I troll around it looking for fun recipes and crafts, and then I actually make the things I pin.
This week I decided to try my hand at melted crayon art. Here is an example http://pinterest.com/pin/67483694386609785/
For my project, I wanted to make a sun, but I'm a realist so I did a test run with other, non-sun colors. I don't particularly enjoy leaving the crayon wrappers on, as I think it ruins the mystique of the project. So step 1 is remove the crayon wrappers. I spent an hour and half peeling the wrappers off before I realized that if I soaked the paper wrappers in a tub of water, then they would fall off on their own.
Step 2, plan your design. I opted for an oval mirror (8x10in) set in the middle of rectangular canvas (18x24in). I wanted a circle mirror, but Joe said he didn't like the circles and preferred ovals, so that's what we went with.
Step 3, glue the mirror to the canvas securely. No one wants 7 years of bad luck for 2 hours of crafting fun. Next I glued the crayons in place, using a light amount of glue. Since the crayons will be melted to the canvas soon, secure gluing is not necessary.
Step 4, get out 1 hair dryer. I am emphasizing the 1 here because my sister(-in law) Angela and I tried using 2 at once, and blew a circuit in the house. This worked out okay though because the person not blowing the hot air could tilt the canvas.
Step 5, which should probably come before step 3, LAY SOME PAPER DOWN to catch the melting wax.
Step 6, set your blaster to high heat and melt your crayons. Angle the dryer into the canvas so wax doesn't go everywhere. The crayons will take a minute or so before they really start melting, but then the wax will start running like water. When you have a color pattern you like, turn the dryer off, and let the crayons solidify.
Here is the finished product!
