Melted Crayon Art

So when I moved into a new apartment a couple months ago, I needed things to decorate the walls.  The melted crayon art thing has been insanely popular, so I decided to try it.  After I got past my OCD tendencies (I seriously spent hours and hours rearranging crayons trying to decide on the order), it was really fun.  Surprisingly fun.  When I got done I wanted to make more immediately and I might still do another one for my bedroom.

I decided to do three separate square canvases that would go together to fill a blank dining room wall.  You can see the wall right when you walk in the apartment, so they have really became a focal point.  Everyone loves them too:

So first, like I said, I spent hours trying to decide on an order for the crayons.  I also agonized over whether to put the crayons on the canvas or off.  My boyfriend voted for off the canvas, so I went with that.  But it was a very tough decision for someone as indecisive as me.  What I did know is that I wanted black canvases, so I painted them first with black acrylic paint.

One thing I highly recommend.  I practiced first!  I took the "ugly" colors I wasn't using from a pack, put them on cardboard, and melted away.  You learn as you go how to blow the wax just right, how it melts, how close to hold the blow dryer, how not to splatter, and how to just get a feel for the whole thing.

Then, I felt I was ready to begin.  I glued the crayons for the first canvas to cardboard with a glue gun, then attempted to tape that to the top of the canvas.  Turns out that was the hardest part of the whole operation.  The cardboard doesn't want to stay where you want it, so I ended up holding the cardboard with one hand for the most part.  This also worked to my advantage though, because I could move them around and sort of press the crayons to the canvas in certain spots when I wanted to.  (It's hard to explain, but again, practice with your reject colors!)

Here was my first set up.  I realized that because I wasn't including the crayons on the canvas, that I could break them in half and even in thirds if I wanted a larger stripe of some colors.  I ended up returning a box of crayons after I realized this too.  One big box may be enough for you, but buy the biggest one for the most cool colors:

And here was the first finished one.  It is a little lumpy in the upper right corner.  They got better as I went:

Here is the second one, in progress.  The neon and metallic colors look great on the black:

My intent was to make it seem the three, though on separate canvases, would continue the same rainbow of colors if put together.  The last one was blue:

And here they all are on my wall!

Here are my final tips:  Again, practice first!  Paint your canvases if you want a different look.  Different crayons melt at different speeds.  (White doesn't want to melt, metallics melt fast - and btw, use metallics!  I have just a few but they add a pop of sparkle that is so cool.)  And, if you don't put the crayons on the canvas, in addition to not needing the whole crayon at the top, you can reuse the strip of half-melted ones when you're done.  I've saved mine just in case!

This would probably be fun for older kids too, but when it comes to the blow drying part, it gets to be a long process, and you have to be patient.  Use the low setting; the high setting will cause splatter.  And if you do it inside (I did), cover everything with newspaper.