This is a project that I’ve been dying to try ever since I saw it on Pinterest. I’m weirdly obsessed with stationery supplies, and crayons have always been near and dear to my heart. There’s something about a new box of crayons that’s just so…satisfying. The smell, the colors… They bring me right back to childhood.
Anyway, I’ve been looking to do some fun DIY art for our apartment, because it’s a bit empty at the moment. I picked up these silly monkey canvases for $2.50 apiece in the dollar area at Target, and I knew they’d be perfect for some crayon art.
DIY Melted Crayon Art
Materials:
- 64 box of crayons
- Canvas
- Glue gun
- Hair dryer
Directions:
1. If you are re-claiming an ugly canvas like me, paint over it with plain white acrylic paint. A tip for keeping the canvas from sticking to your work surface: stick pushpins into the back of the canvas to lift it up off your work surface
2. Sort through your crayons and decide what colors you want to use and in what order. I got mine all lined up before I started gluing them down
3. Start gluing down your crayons by placing a line of hot glue down one edge. Make sure you take into account which side of the label you want to be facing up. I put the crayola logo on top, but do what you want!
4. Once you’ve got your crayons glued down, set up your melting work area. The wax can spatter a bit, so put newspaper or paper towels under and behind the canvas
5. I used high heat and a low speed setting to melt my crayons, because the higher speed made the wax spatter more. Starting at about the midpoint of your crayons, angle the hair dryer down and start heating them up. As they got hot, they will begin to drip down
5. Continue melting your crayons until you achieve the desired effect. I found that different colors melt differently, so you may need to concentrate your efforts in different areas for different amounts of time. You can also target blobs of wax further down the canvas to keep them moving
I’m really glad I did 2 different canvases with 2 different color schemes, and they look perfect on either side of the window in my living room! Although I did goof and make one of the canvases upside down–there was a hanging device on one side of each of the canvases, and I melted the crayons on the opposite side, but it still looks ok, and I can put a picture hanger on it to fix it later.
How did your crayon art come out?
