A Hot Project!

I have to admit something. I have, thanks to a co-worker discovered a site that makes my craftiness go off the charts. The site is called Pinterest, it is a virtual bulletin board that allows you to pin anything you like to it and repin what others pin. It is the mecca of crafts, humor, food and anything that you can think of. My new found site has me a little excited, in just a week's time it appears that I have pinned about 900 items. Of course with the intent to make or experience all of the items I pin. So craft item number one (number 2 on the overall pinning list-number one is on my cake blog) was something that pulled in several people from my office for craft therapy and research. The project, crayon art.
No we are not coloring with crayons, well not in the traditional way.  All you have to do is hot glue crayons (with or without paper) to a canvas. Then you take a hair dryer and turn up the heat pointing the air stream at the crayons and let the fun melting begin.  Those are the instructions I had so needless to say I have come up with a few tips.
My first piece was one of those trial and mostly error pieces. Being a 4-H Agent I thought I would be extra creative and tape off a section of the canvas to say 4-H and only melt green crayons. Unfortunately the heat of the melting wax and the strength of the blow dryer blew the tape off the canvass drastically effecting this experiment.  I also staggered the crayons on this top.  Now I know, The more crayons pasted at the top the better. Most importantly, you need to tilt your canvas while you are blow drying the crayons so that they melt in a downward pattern and don't splatter across the canvas.

As my co-workers worked the project we found out a couple of other interesting tips. Crayola Crayons work better than off brand crayons (more color less wax). Also taking the paper off and gluing the crayons straight to the canvas allows for a neater design. Use less crayon if you want a small drip pattern and you can also allow for a hand painted design in the white space when you get done. Also if you move the dryer across the entire canvas melting all the crayons at once versus one section and then another you get a smoother design. It does take some patience to melt the crayons and make the drip pattern fairly even. Overall you end up with a really neat design. My co-workers are now working on a circle and heart patterns as well.

If you would like to see more of my future crafting projects on Pinterest feel free to e-mail me with your e-mail address and I will be happy to send you an invite to the website.