Tag Archives: melted crayon art

Melted Plastic Necklace

I actually learned this craft when I was in elementary school. They were made by melting clear plastic pill bottles in the oven. I used to make them with my students, but over the years it became too difficult to get the right kind of plastic bottles. A few years ago, I tried making them with clear plastic disposable cups, but they were too big and wide at the top and just didn’t turn out as well. I was in the dollar store earlier this week (Surprise! Surprise!) and spotted clear plastic shot glasses. I immediately thought of this project and it occurred to me that these might work. The package of 30 was only a dollar, so it was clearly worth a try. I was so excited when the project worked, as this was much easier than the olden days when I had to ask everyone I know to save their prescription bottles for me.

Melted Plastic Necklace:

Materials:

  • Dollar Store clear plastic shot glasses (package of 30 for $1)
  • Old Crayons
  • A pencil sharpener or knife to create shavings
  • foil lined cake pan
  • baked marbles (optional)
  • Rotary Tool like a Dremel (optional)

Method:

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
  • Place a small amount of crayon shavings in the bottom of a cup (no more than 3 colours and be careful of the combinations you choose or you’ll end up with a yucky brown)
  • I decided to add baked marbles to a few of mine. Although they look fine, they are a little hidden and didn’t have the impact I had hoped for.
  • Place the cups on a foil lined pan. They won’t really expand, so they can be close together. *However, if you want to poke a hole in it (necklace, key chain, etc.), you will need to work very fast and I would suggest baking one at a time.
  • Cook until melted ~ approximately 1 1/2 minutes. If you aren’t loving the shape, you can actually poke at them a bit to “encourage” them to melt in a slightly different way. The pill bottles used to take longer and probably weren’t very safe to bake because they had quite a toxic smell while baking.  These babies didn’t smell at all and melted really quickly – this is way better than the original.
  • Remove from oven a poke a hole, if desired. I used my new rotary tool to grind the holes after. I picked this up at McMunn and Yates for about $40 and love it! It is like a knock-off Dremel and can do all sorts of things like cut glass, etch, sanding small areas, etc. I just got it, so I am still getting used to it, but can already tell it was a great purchase.

When I was a kid, we poked a hole in the hot plastic, put a string through it and made a necklace. You could also add a ring and make a key chain or do what I did with my students and add a pin to the back to make a nice broach. These really do look beautiful and the ideas are only limited by your imagination.

I tried putting marbles in the middle cup as well as the right cup.
Baked marble inside.
I wrapped a baked glass bead in wire and hot glued it inside.
I hot glued a baked glass bead on the outside lip of this one.

Have you ever considered working from home? A revolutionary new training system has hit the market.  If you are interested in learning how to earn money from home, you need to click this link.

 

Melted Crayon Art

I am sure that most people have seen the very cool melted crayon art on Pinterest.  Last year, I decided to take the idea and create a series of pictures for my classroom.  The cool thing about this project is that you can use any image, word or colour you want to create the perfect look for your home or office. My goal was to create a way to display my “colour” words in my kindergarten classroom in a new and innovative way.  I love the finished look!

Melted Crayon Art


The above video gives a very good description of what to do, but I will share a few specifics about my project.

1. I used seven 12″ frames from the dollar store for this project. I did not prep the canvas as she suggested in the video, but I did end up with a bit of chipping. (Especially when the construction workers were sledge hammering my exterior walls and the art was falling off the walls and onto the floor!)

2. I bought lots of crayons. I don’t remember how many, but I am thinking about 5 to 6 packs of 64 as I wanted blocks of colour for each frame.

3. I wanted to highlight the “colour” word in my finished product, so I carefully measured and centered each colour word on the blank canvas with vinyl stickers. You could purchase stickers if you want to do a word, but I cut mine with my Cricut machine.

4. I used a hot glue gun to adhere the crayons and it worked fine, but they did not with stand the fall to the floor during construction.  Be sure to plan the order of your crayons and think about whether you want the “Crayola” label to be uniform across the piece or not. I did, so I made sure that I glued the labels the same way across the width.

5. I melted my crayons with a heat gun.  Some suggest a hairdryer and it does work as well, but you do not have the same control and get more “splashes” and a less uniform look.

6. Shortly after melting and before the wax was completely set, I peeled off the vinyl lettering (with tip of a craft knife) to leave the word in the negative space where there was not any melted wax.  The final effect is more of an impression of a word than clear concise lettering, but I think it looks great. (Click the images to enlarge.)

The “YELLOW” didn’t stand out very well, so I lightly penciled the outline of the word.

Other Examples of Melted Crayon Art

This image was borrowed from http://mescrap.blogspot.ca/2012/10/tips-melted-crayon.html Visit the site for more great ideas.
This image was borrowed from http://barleyandbirch.com/2012/04/make-something-monday-melted-crayon-art/ Visit the site for more great ideas.
This image was borrowed from www.artfire.com/nosh/melted-crayon-art/ Visit the site for more great ideas.

Overall, this project is very simple and inexpensive to do. Would look great in a kid’s room with their name taking up the negative space or even an oversized initial for their name.

If you are interested in learning to blog, do not miss this opportunity to learn how the pros blog with a revolutionary new blogging platform.  Click here to learn more.