If at first you don't succeed...

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried! - Steven Wright

     That is generally the philosophy that I have when it comes to crafts. I am a pretty crafty person, so if something doesn't work the first time, I tend to just ditch it and move on.

     Recently, there has been one craft that I couldn't get right that has just been bugging me. If you remember my Melted Crayon Art post, I said that I couldn't get mine to look like my inspirations. At the time, I found a way to make it work (using a hair dryer), but I didn't give up on the glue gun.

     So, I found another picture that I liked. This one is Thing 2 playing with her umbrella.

     To make it a little different, I painted the entire canvas black. I then traced Thing 2's picture onto the canvas with pencil. I used a white paint marker to fill it in. I had to let it dry completely and go over it a second time to cover all of the black. 

     I made an umbrella out of card stock and taped it around the umbrella on the canvas so that the crayon would run off of it like rain. I also covered all of the white paint with painter's tape.

     I then used my hot glue gun to melt the crayons onto the canvas. Since I kind of knew how my glue gun was going to act, it made it easier to get the look that I wanted.

     I also discovered that, in this case, less is not more. I think that one of my original problems was that I wasn't putting enough crayon on the canvas. I don't think that there is such a thing as "too much" for this craft.

     Here's the final product. What do you think?

Melted Crayon Art

     I have found a lot of uses for broken crayons. One thing I never imagined doing was running them through my glue gun and making "paintings" with them. However, I had a little inspiration, so I decided to give it a try.

     First let me say this, it isn't as easy as it looks. It seems like it would be pretty straight forward. Push crayon through glue gun, drip on canvas. Viola! Yeah, not quite. At one point, my glue gun decided to turn into a hot, melted crayon volcano. So, after 2 disappointing attempts, I abandoned the glue gun for another technique that I read about, the hair dryer.

    I started by picking the picture that I wanted. You need to select one that is going to make a good silhouette. It doesn't matter if there is stuff in the background, you can edit that out. Here's the picture I started with:

     I don't own a light board, so I printed the picture and cut Thing 1 out. I used that as a stencil to trace her silhouette onto my canvas. I then used a black paint marker to color it in.

     Before doing anything else, you need to protect your work space! I thought that mine was well protected. The orange spot that is now on my carpet would beg to differ.

     Since I wasn't starting at the top of the canvas, I used painters tape to attach paper where I wanted to start my crayons. I then used craft glue to attach the crayon pieces to the paper.

     Next, I stood the canvas on it's side so that the crayon would run down as it melted.

     Finally, I used my hair dryer to melt the crayons. It didn't take very long before they started melting and running down the canvas. I used several reds, orange and yellow. In the end, they all ran and mixed together.  Allow the crayon to dry before moving the canvas.

     Here's the final product:

     It didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, but I love the end result.

     What do you think? Will you use the new melty crayon technique in any of your crafts?

Foil Baking Cup Crayons

     

    If your kids are anything like mine, you end up with more broken crayons than whole ones. I have been saying that I was going to buy a Crayola Crayon Maker for a year, but I still haven't. So today, I had a little inspiration and decided to melt the broken crayons in my oven.

     First, you need to remove the paper from the crayon bits. I found that it was easier to cut a line down the entire paper using a knife than it was to try and pull it back with my fingernails.

     Second, place foil baking cups on cookie sheet (I used an old cookie sheet so that I would't ruin a good one if I burned crayon onto it) or use them to line your muffin pan (any size!).

     Now, you're ready to put your crayon pieces in the baking cups! I made 2 different kinds. I made some in mini-muffin papers and some in jumbo muffin papers . For the jumbos, I mixed a bunch of different colors together. I filled the cups about 3/4 full with crayon pieces. For the minis, I used various shades of the same color, also filled 3/4.

Colors in jumbo baking cup

The tray of jumbos.

     They're finally ready for the oven! I set my oven at 250 degrees F. At that temp, my jumbo cups had to bake for about 15 minutes. The minis only took 10 minutes. Part of the bake time is the size of the crayon bits. Smaller bits are going to melt more quickly.

     When all of the crayon bits are melted, it's time to remove them from the oven. Be sure to disturb them as little as possible while moving them.

Jumbos fresh out of the oven

     Allow the crayons to cool completely before removing them from the foil baking cups.

     Your new crayons are now ready to use!


     Below are some picture of the final product! I'm going to add a Merry Christmas tag and a Christmas-y bow and give them to Thing 1's and Thing 2's friends.

Cooled and bagged jumbos

Minis - one set in bag, the rest cooled in pan