iRelle

My three experiments with melty crayon craft. Each one was made with slightly different techniques. This post shows how I made the autumn colour piece.

Several people have asked me for instructions for my melty crayon messes. After the explosion of the melty crayon mess onto the internet in general (and Pinterest in particular), I decided it was time to have a go. I’ve done a few experiments, and I haven’t found the definitive answer on any other site, so here’s my rather wordy strategy for attacking the melty crayon mess:

Step One: Gather your stuff. You’ll need a stretched, sealed canvas (this one is about 20cm square), Scissors, Blu-Tack, a silhouetted image printed off to the right size, a pencil, a black sharpie, a hot glue gun and lots of crayons!

Step Two: Decide which colour crayons you want to use. I chose to use up the last few from my original packet of 64, and since they were autumn-y colours I went with that theme.

Step Three: Lay your crayons on your canvas, and decide how you will stick them on. Keep in mind that a smaller canvas will have less room for meltiness, so you may want to shorten your crayons. I broke mine into rough halves, then spent way too long thinking about which colours needed to go next to each other. When you’re happy with the result, break out the glue gun!

Step Four: Note: If you wish to make this without the crayon wrappers, you will need to use a glue stick to attach the crayons to your canvas – just put the glue on the canvas and stick ‘em on. The melting process will help keep them there permanently. However, if you are using crayons with wrappers on it’s important you use a stronger glue, like a glue gun, to keep them in place.

Heat up your glue gun and run a strip of glue down the back of each crayon, one at a time. Pay attention to the details at this point – make sure your crayons are nicely lined up against the edge of the canvas, and if you want a certain part of the label showing, apply your glue accordingly.

Step Five: Now your crayons are nicely fixed, you can think about the other part of your melty crayon mess: the silhouette. You don’t have to do this step, and I think if you’re working with smaller children it’s a great idea to skip it – you will still get a great looking piece of artwork without it!

However, if you’re determined (or stubborn, like me), grab your scissors and cut around your silhouette carefully.

Step Six: Trace your silhouette onto the canvas using the pencil. There isn’t a lot of forgiveness in the canvas, even working in pencil, so trace lightly and be sure of your placement! Erasing may stretch the canvas out of shape (I learned that the hard way)

Step Seven: Now it’s time to mask this area off. If you are using an umbrella silhouette, you want to mask the shape of the top of the umbrella, plus all the area underneath the umbrella, right out to the sides. I tried a few different ways to mask the area, and found the most effective way was using blu-tack!

Use small pieces of blu-tack to fill your pencil outline, making sure that it is pressed firmly onto the canvas. This requires a bit of patience, since the blu-tack usually prefers to stick to your fingers than the canvas! The great thing about the blu-tack, however, is that you can press it on firmly and then use a fingernail or end of a pencil to push it into the right shape. Once you are satisfied your area is masked and leak-proof, the fun begins!

Step Eight: Fire up your hair dryer! There are a lot of variables to change how this step turns out, so go slow and keep an eye on what is happening. The crayons will melt faster depending on the brand (my cheap ones melted very quickly, but the runoff was quite thin. I think Crayolas would give a denser runoff, but take longer to melt). The heat and blow of your dryer will also affect the final product!

Spread a lot of newspaper around, as the melted crayon tends to spray off the edges a bit. Prop your canvas up against a wall or something, and start heating. Keeping your dryer about 15cm from the crayons, work your way across the canvas in stages, keeping your dryer on the same angle as the crayons and blowing downwards. If you want your colours to run together more, put your dryer really close to the canvas and blow directly at the runoff! This step is the most important one – but have some fun, and don’t be afraid to experiment!

However, I wouldn’t advise turning or tipping the canvas at all during this step. Keep the runoff heading downwards, or you’ll wind up with some odd horizontal ‘rain’!

Step Nine: Clean up your canvas. leave the canvas for a few seconds to set the runoff, then brush the bottom edge (where a puddle will have formed) on the newspaper. You may want to stick your canvas in the freezer if it will fit – just for a minute or so, to toughen up the blu-tack as well as the crayons! If you can’t get it into the freezer, just leave it for ten minutes or so to cool down.

Then attack that blu-tack! If your masked area got a lot of heat, you might find that your blu-tack has changed texture and is harder to pull off than before. Keep at it though, as it will come off with a little perseverance and leave a gorgeous raised outline around your traced silhouette! Just be a little careful with the crayon edges near the silhouette, as they may break off if you aren’t gentle.

Step Ten: Again, I tried several different techniques for this part of the melty mess: the silhouette. The easiest way, which I did this time, is just to grab a sharpie and colour that shape in! Your get a nice bold shape with sharp edges and a cool texture difference from the crayon runoff.

However, my favourite silhouette was a lot more fiddly. I cut out the silhouette with painstaking attention to detail, then glue-stick’d it to the canvas. I then painted over it with black acrylic paint. The paper gives it a little extra pop, and I love the details I got into it.

Step Eleven: Finally, make sure that there aren’t any bumps of melty crayon on the back of your canvas – someone will want to know who’s been drawing on the wall! If there are, just scrape them off with a fingernail or kitchen knife. Now go and hang that delightful piece of melty crayon craft! Right where everyone can see it and tell you how clever you are!

Last of all… take a photo and send it to me! I’d love to do a follow-up post showing off everyone’s Melty Crayon Crafts!