Thursday, October 22, 2009

Crayon Crafts

We made our foliage “stained glass” and it adds so much color to our windows. We get the best light in our kitchen and we just tape the finished products right to the window. I have been making these since I was a kid and honestly it is such a fun, easy thing to do. And I love anything that gets us outside to prepare for a craft.
  1. Collect your leaves.
  2. Shave some crayons. We used a lemon zester this year and it was great. My six-year-old was able to do all the work.
  3. Arrange leaves on a piece of wax paper.
  4. Sprinkle crayon shavings around.
  5. Lay another piece of wax paper over it.
  6. Iron them together.
In the past I have put a towel over the wax paper but this year, I put the setting on medium and just ironed right on the wax paper. We didn’t have any issues. But definitely test it out – especially if you have a Rowenta iron, like the one I want so badly. I did put a towel on my ironing board because sometimes the crayons can bleed through and to be safe, make sure you wipe your iron off after you’re done.

And then, we had some leftover crayon shavings and a lot of little crayon pieces so we made crayons discs. We put all the little crayon pieces in a non-stick mini-muffin pan and put them in the oven on 225.




15 minutes or so later and we had these and the girls colored some pictures with their funky new crayons. If you make these, just let them cool completely and they pop right out of the tray. It’s a great way to recycle broken crayons.



--Crafty Mom

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What do you do with all the crafts projects your family creates? I have no room in the house for these treasures.

Crafty Mom said...

I know, you can end up with TONS of stuff. I keep "scrapbooks" that are basically filled with just clear sleeves and I put all the 2D work I want to keep in those. I don't mount them or anything - I'm not a true scrapbooker. The stuff goes straight into the sheet protectors. But over time I have really started to minimize what I keep because it gets out of control. So I recycle a ton if it's not something new (skillwise)or different or - eek - not that impressive. Particularly with drawings and paintings. I mean seriously, how many pictures of rainbows can one house have? If it's seasonal and fun, I put it away with the holiday decorations and bring it out each year. That saves me from having to throw things away but also lets me store it. I do give some stuff to relatives and I try to bring some things into my office because I'm not as picky about my decorating scheme there. Ha ha. But I also frame things (in cheapo frames from Target, Goodwill or Ikea) or display things in random rooms in our house like the bathrooms, the playroom or up the stairs to the attic. My decorating budget is pretty minimal and spaces like that tend to get ignored and could use a little help! When my older daughter was younger and she would paint, she would tell me what the picture was and it would either look nothing like what she said or there would be the faintest resemblance. So I would "title" them and date them and many of them are framed in her room. I love looking at them now that she has grown. I have started to do a similar thing with my youngest. We also do a lot of craft stuff intenionally for a gift we are giving or we make things we will use so it's not just stuff that collects - like these crayons, they are in with the crayons now. Friendship bracelets and tie dyes actually get worn, etc. But like I said, I do get rid of stuff. You have to. I just try to recycle it or reuse it whenever possible. And just like school work, everything always gets a little time on display either on the fridge or on a magnetic blackboard I have in the kitchen. And then one day, it's just gone and no one knows where it went.

Anonymous said...

I take digital pictures of some of the projects my daughter brings home that are harder to display...at some point, I plan to make an art book on one of the photo sites of her masterpieces.

Crafty Mom said...

Anonymous - That is a great idea! I have seen people scan in drawings, etc. as if they were photos and then they have made books from one of the photo sites. They look really terrific. I never thought of taking pictures of "sculptures" and other hard to display stuff, though. Thanks for sharing.

 
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