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Piece of Craft: Crayons Come Alive

Create your own colorful masterpiece. Photo by Faith Breisblatt.
Create your own colorful masterpiece. Photo by Faith Breisblatt.

This weekend, I think it’s safe to say I made one of the coolest things I’ve ever made thus far in my life.  If you’re a crafter like myself or just an avid internet fiend, you may have seen this Crayola-inspired work of art around, so obviously I cannot take the credit for the design (although I will admit, I did do something very similar at one point in time).

This project is very easy to make and all you need is a pack of 48 crayons (Crayola, Rosart, it’s your choice, but I always prefer Crayola), a hot glue gun, a canvas (or really any sort of background although like my choice in crayons, I always choose the former), and a blow dryer. That’s it! What you do is you hot glue the crayons onto your canvas. Once they’re dry, you use the blow dryer to melt the wax in whatever pattern you see fit. Basically, the wax should trickle down and look as it does in my picture, but by moving the blow dryer up and down and holding it at various angles, you can direct the pattern of the wax.

After completing this project, I realize there are many things you should and probably shouldn’t do when attempting this creation. Since you guys are all wonderful, I’ve decided to share my tips with you. Hopefully, they will help you when you attempt this project yourself!

What to do:

-DO clear a space. A large one. Melted crayon could possible fly anywhere and everywhere once you begin, which could be a little intimidating. But remember, it’s just melted wax, so as long as you’re not on carpet, it will be easy to clean.

-DO place your crayons right next to each other when gluing them down. Although you would think leaving a space between each crayon would make the wax flow better, it really flows off the design and leaves the top part of your artwork looking incomplete. I also recommend putting blues with blues, greens with greens, and so on. You can put the colors in any order you like, but I do love the rainbow look.

-DO keep your blow dryer on low, unless you want a gigantic mess (which I would assume you don’t). As it is, you may have some wax fly around, so to avoid more wax in places you don’t want it to be, don’t put your blow dryer on high.

What not to do:

-DON’T just get a pack of 24 crayons. At the very least, you are going to need 48. You may even want to get a pack of 24 AND a pack of 48 to make sure you have enough of all the colors you want.

-DON’T use another type of glue other than hot glue. I mean, you could probably try one of those types like Gorilla Glue or something that should stick to anything, but I just feel like hot glue is the way to go.

For any questions, comments, or more helpful tips, contact me at fbreisbl@asu.edu.  Stay crafty!


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