Crayon Candle

     Here's a great way to use up any crayon odds and ends you have lying around the house.

Materials:
*Beeswax or paraffin wax
*Crayon(s)
*Aluminum can
*Cookie sheet
*Paper cup
*Cheese grater
*Candle wick
*Votive
*Popsicle sticks

Directions:
*Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
*Grate a small amount of wax into the paper cup.
*Place the cup in the microwave and heat for about 2 minutes, or until the wax has melted.  Alternately, you can put the wax into an an aluminum can on a cookie sheet and melt in the oven.
*Pour the wax into the bottom of the votive and quickly place the metal part of the candle wick in the center of the votive on top of the melted wax.  Let harden.
*Grate enough wax to fill the aluminum can.  Add a piece of crayon to the can.  It doesn't have to be a very big piece to make some nice pastel colored candles.  For example, for the blue candle I used a piece of a sky blue crayon that was about half an inch long.
*Pop the aluminum can into the oven and heat for 10-15 minutes, or until fully melted.
*Stir the wax with a Popsicle stick and the pour into the votive.  I had some difficulty getting the wick to stand up after pouring in the hot wax, but I was able to remedy this by using four Popsicle sticks to hold it in place.  I placed the Popsicle sticks across the top of the votive to form a square enclosing the wick and this held it upright.  Leave in place until the candle has hardened.

Fun Shapes Crayons

 

     Here's the last of my rainbow crayon party ideas.  You can let party guests make their own crayons for a fun party activity, or make crayons in advance to send home as party favors.

Materials:
*Old crayons
*Aluminum cans
*Inexpensive ice cube trays or shape molds
*Baking sheet

Directions:
*Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.
*Separate old crayons into groups of similar colors.  Peel the paper off of the crayons, then place them in aluminum cans, using one can per color group.
*Place cans on a baking sheet and heat for 10-15 minutes, or until thoroughly melted.  The more crayons in a can, the longer it will take for the colors to melt.
*The crayons in a can will tend to melt together into one color.  If you would like to keep some color differentiation, place only a few crayons in each can and keep an eye them, pulling each can out of the oven as soon as the crayons inside have completely melted.  If you would like a more uniform color, however, leave the crayons in the oven a little longer.
*Pour melted crayons into the shape molds.  You can get a multicolored crayon by pouring multiple colors into one mold.  The colors will swirl together a little, though, so pick colors that mix well together.
*Let cool for half an hour or so, then pop them out of the molds and they're ready to use.

Note: Crayon does not come off easily, so any molds you end up using will probably end up relegated permanently to crayon making.  For most of my molds, I used shaped ice cube trays that I got from Dollar Tree for a dollar.  Those seemed to work just fine for making crayons.

Easy Crayon Tablecloth and Melted Crayon Art Cake

    Here's another set of ideas for a rainbow crayon themed party.  If you haven't seen these yet and are looking for rainbow crayon decoration ideas, check out my melted crayon heart garland, my melted crayon decorative bowls, and my melted crayon art.  Next week I'll have the last of my rainbow crayon party ideas, and the week after I'll post a fun photo craft, so stay tuned!

Crayon Tablecloth



Materials:
*Plastic tablecloth
*Cardstock
*Color printer
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Enlarge the crayon templates below to the desired size and print them onto cardstock.
*Cut out the crayon shapes and glue them to your tablecloth.

Melted Crayon Art Cake

     I don't usually blog about food, but I thought this cake decorating idea was to neat not to share.  I came across the melted crayon cake idea online and thought it would work well with the theme for my party, so when Brian was making my cake I asked him if he could frost it to look like melted crayon art.  I'm including some directions on how to decorate the cake, plus Brian's icing recipe.

Cake decorating materials:

*Icing recipe and ingredients

*Food coloring

*Plastic sandwich bags

Cake decorating directions:

*Prepare a batch of your preferred icing recipe and ice the cake as you would normally, then make a second batch, using perhaps a little less liquid than what the recipe calls for (Brian found that when he added the food coloring, the icing became a bit runny.  You can always add a bit more liquid if the icing turns out to be too dry after adding the food coloring).

*Separate the icing into plastic sandwich bags, as many as you would like to have colors on your cake.

*Add a few drops of food coloring to one of the bags.  Massage the bag with your fingers until the icing is a consistent color.  Add more food coloring if the color is not as dark as what you're looking for.

*Repeat for the other colors.

*Cut off the bottom corner of the sandwich bag.  The larger a chunk you cut out of the corner, the thicker your melted crayon lines will be.

*Squeeze icing onto the side of the cake.

Brian's icing recipe:

Ingredients:

*1/2 cup butter

*1 pound confectioner's sugar

*1/4 cup milk

*1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

*Cream butter and 2 cups of confectioner's sugar together.

*Add vanilla and milk.

*Add remaining sugar gradually until icing reaches its desired consistency.



Melted Crayon Heart Garland

     Here's another decoration I made for my rainbow crayon themed party.  They're rather time consuming to make, but the resulting garlands are really nice (the picture doesn't really do them justice).  For other rainbow crayon party ideas, check out my melted crayon decorative bowls and my melted crayon art.  Also, stay tuned, because I'll have more ideas next week.

Materials:
*Crayons in a variety of colors (I used 20 different colors)
*Waxed paper
*Cheese grater
*Iron
*Scissors
*Heart template
*Metallic permanent marker
*White thread
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Cut a piece of waxed paper about 1 1/2 feet in length.
*Grate about 1/4 of a crayon onto one half of the waxed paper, then fold the other half of the waxed paper over so the crayon pieces end up sandwiched between the two halves.
*Iron the waxed paper on low heat until the crayon has melted.  Set aside to cool.
*Repeat the procedure for the remaining crayons.
*Trace heart shapes onto the paper using the heart template, then cut them out.
*Arrange hearts in the color order of your choice, then glue to white thread to create your garland.

Melted Crayon Decorative Bowls

     For my birthday party this year, I decided to go with a highly sophisticated theme representative of the fact that I am now one more year into adulthood: rainbow crayon.  Over the next several weeks I'll be posting on the rainbow crayon decorations that I made for my party, so if you have any interest in hosting a crayon themed bash or just like crayon crafts, you've come to the right place.

Materials:
*Glass or other heat resistant decorative dishes
*Crayons in about 20 different colors
*Hot glue gun
*Hair dryer
*Glitter paint and paintbrush (optional)
*Ribbon (optional)

Directions:
*If you would like glittery containers, paint with 1-2 coats of glitter paint, then set aside to dry.
*Cut off the upper 1/4 of each crayon, then, once the dish is dry, glue to the bowl in a rainbow pattern. 
*When gluing, make sure to press the crayon firmly into the hot glue so that it will stick.  If the crayon falls off, let the glue cool for a moment, then gently peel it off the container, being careful to keep the glitter paint mostly intact.
*Once the crayons have all been glued down, layer your workspace with newspaper.  Turn your hair dryer on high heat and aim at the crayons.  Run the heat over the crayons until they have melted to your liking.
*As you work, you may find that some of the crayons slide down off of the hot glue.  If this happens, give the crayon pieces a moment to cool down, then move them to the side of your workspace so that they won't melt and stick to the bottom of your container.
*Set the container aside to cool.  Once it is sufficiently cool, carefully peel off the hot glue and any crayon pieces still affixed to the hot glue.
*Add some ribbon to the top of the container, if you'd like.

Melted Crayon Art 2.0 and Splattered Stationary

I had a lot of fun making melted crayon art last week and I really liked the end result, but I saw a lot of potential for improvement in this art.  I decided that I wanted to make another canvas, one that required more imagination and creativity, and this is what I came up with.

Materials:
*64 pack of crayons
*8 1/2 x 11 canvas
*Hot glue gun and glue
*Hair dryer
*Ribbon
*Glitter glue in a color of your choice
*Large paintbrush
*Small paintbrush

Directions:
*To achieve the ombré background effect, begin by painting the entire canvas with a coating of glitter glue.  Let dry.
*Once the first coat has dried, paint the bottom half of the canvas with another coating of glitter glue.
*After the second coat has dried, paint the bottom third of the canvas with another coat of glitter glue.
*Finally, paint a thin strip at the very bottom of the canvas with a coat of glitter glue. 
*When your canvas has finished drying, arrange your crayons on the canvas in a color pattern you find pleasing.  Make sure to set aside the white crayon, which you will need later.
*Using the hot glue gun, glue the crayons with the tips facing down.  Make sure you are gluing the crayons to the lightly colored top portion of the canvas so that you do not end up covering your color gradation.  You should end up with something like this:

*Cover your work area with newspaper to prevent melted wax from adhering to your area.  Lean the canvas against a wall.
*Turn your hair dryer on high heat and aim at the middle of the crayons.  Run the heat over the crayons until they have melted to your liking.  Be careful, as some of the wax may splatter a little.
*Once the crayons have melted as much as you wanted them to, let them sit for some time so the wax will resolidify. 
*Once the crayons have hardened some, break the white crayon in half.  Peel the paper off the bottom portion of the crayon and drop it into a ceramic bowl.
*Turn your hairdryer on high heat and hold it over the crayon until the crayon has melted.
*Dip the small paintbrush into the melted crayon and fling the white wax at the canvas.  Repeat until you are satisfied with your canvas.  If the crayon begins solitifying before you are finished, turn the hairdryer on it for a moment until the wax has melted again.
*When you have finished splatter painting with the white crayon, let your artwork sit until the wax has fully solidified.
*Glue a piece of ribbon to the back of the canvas to serve as a hook from which you can hang the canvas.

Bonus Craft: Splattered Stationary

This craft idea resulted from a failed craft attempt.  I was trying to make bubble stationary, but when I pressed the bubbles onto the stationary the resulting color was not dark enough for me.  I did not want to dump out the solution, so here is what I ended up doing.

Materials:

*Food coloring

*Dish soap

*Sugar

*Water

*Heavyweight white paper

*Plastic spray bottle

Directions:

*Combine a couple drops of food coloring, a squirt of dish soap, a small amount of sugar, and some water in a spray bottle.

*Cover your work area in newspaper to prevent staining your furniture etc. with food coloring.

*Standing a foot or so from your paper, spray with the solution in your spray bottle.  Make sure not to spray too much liquid in one area or it may cause your paper to wrinkle. 

*Once you have created a pattern you like, set your paper aside to dry.

Looking for more creative inspiration?  Check out my latest addition to my stylish storage containers blog post.

Melted Crayon Art

I've seen melted crayon art online before and I thought it was really cool, so I finally got around to making it.  I'm including a link to the original post I worked from in addition to my own, slightly modified directions.

Materials:
*Two 24-packs of crayons
*8 1/2 x 11 canvas
*Hot glue gun and glue
*Hair dryer
*Ribbon

Directions:
*Arrange crayons along the canvas in a color pattern you find pleasing.  You will not need to use all 48 crayons
*Using the hot glue gun, glue the crayons to the canvas, with the tips facing down.  You should end up with something like this:

*Cover your work area with newspaper to prevent melted wax from adhering to your area.  Lean the canvas against a wall
*Turn your hair dryer on high heat and aim at the middle of the crayons.  Run the heat over the crayons until they have melted to your liking.  Be careful, as some of the wax may splatter a little
*Once the crayons have melted as much as you wanted them to, let the art work sit until the wax has cooled
*Glue a piece of ribbon to the back of the canvas to serve as a hook from which you can hang the canvas