Kat's Melted Crayon Experiments

Kat's second request of the evening on Saturday was to do some melted crayon art. So, out came the crayons, the pencil sharpener and the baking parchment along with the iron and ironing board. She arranged the shaved wax on card before placing it between sheets of parchment paper and ironing over the top. We used the iron on its coolest setting and used lots of baking paper because the wax is pretty greasy and has a tendency to melt off the card so we needed to protect the ironing board. Although it does not always produce the most beautiful creations it is definitely an incredibly satisfying process.

Melted Crayon Stones

There is something wonderful about melting wax. Whether it's candle wax or crayons I find it slightly entrancing. So, it's no surprise that I've been curious to try this craft for a while but as it's not preschool friendly I have had to wait for a good opportunity to give it a go. I will admit that Jessica absolutely did join in and loved doing so but there were very strict rules applied and close and careful supervision given. I don't recommend it for young children.

Having chosen a couple of large stones from the garden I gave them a quick wash and then put them on one of my crafting baking sheets that I had also covered in foil. This was ideal because the hot wax doesn't melt through the foil and the baking sheet doesn't stay hot for very long once it's out of the oven making it much easier for Jessica to get involved safely. The stones went into a preheated oven (c. 180 degrees Celsius) for 15 minutes. I set to work on them as soon as they were out and Jess joined me about 5 minutes later.

To create the beautiful patterns all we did was hold some crayons (paper removed) on the stones and allow the crayon to melt and run freely. It was so easy and I love the results...

These are all images of the stones while the crayon was still molten. Having dried overnight they are less glossy but every bit as interesting. It was a really fun processes and we liked seeing how the wax kept  following the same paths down the rocks due to their uneven surfaces. We will be doing this again I think. However, I now have no idea what to do with these two lumps of decorated stone and would leave crayon marks where-ever they go. I have applied a coat of acrylic varnish (which has restored some of the glossy appearance) to see if that helps stop the crayon rubbing off but I'm sceptical and think that on this occasion they might just have to find a home somewhere in the garden where they can't do any harm.

Shades of Autumn

Archie's holiday homework last October half term was a lovely activity that inspired a rather elaborate response from the pair of us. The Year 1 class were asked to go for an Autumn walk, to collect leaves and create a collage. 

Earlier in the week we'd been making pretty pictures using flowers and contact paper so we thought we'd try a similar thing with the leaves. Archie asked to cut his initials out of the paper to create the apertures which he eventually filled with his beautiful selection of leaves. Before this though, Archie wanted to try out doing some melted crayon art so we grated some autumn coloured wax crayons and he sprinkled them liberally all over the page. Using baking parchment I ironed it to melt the wax. We then covered the whole sheet in contact paper and Arch stuck the leaves down on the back of the paper to cover his initials in leaves. I'll be honest, it was all a bit over the top but we enjoyed it and it was certainly something a bit different!

Melted Crayon Art

Finally for the big one. Melted crayon art! This was a lot of fun but took a long time and a whole lot of crayons (nearly 80 I believe!). I just wish I’d used the same type of crayon from the very beginning because it would have been beautifully uniform then with just the smartie like blobs of melted crayon rather than the very runny or particularly stringy patches that you might be able to spot on the close up shots. It was the first time I’d tried it though and I didn’t know just how differently the brands and sorts of crayons would react. I’d read that different colours melted at different rates but I suppose the composition of the crayons are different by different manufacturers too.

Anyway, here’s what I did…

I attached six photos of our wonderful (?!) children to a large canvas using double sided sticky tape first. Next I removed the crayons from their wrappers or plastic barrels and heated up my glue gun, which has rarely been used to glue anything ready to feed the crayons through. I found that by far the best crayons to use were Crayola twistables and I was glad that it’s “Back to School” time because the current deals saved me a fair bit of money. These were the best both in terms of controlled melting and size to feed through the gun as they are only fractionally narrower than the glue sticks themselves so the trigger mechanism still worked perfectly. Hours and many, many crayons later I was satisfied with the result and I’m pleased to report that my glue gun still works with glue sticks too, which was a bonus and I was fully prepared for it to become my crayon gun only.  I wonder how many crayons it would have taken to cover the whole thing…