i’ve never outgrown crayons… i still love the smell, the colors, and the wax that sticks under my fingernails when i pick pick pick at the wrappers to peel them down to expose more fresh crayon. i spent hours coloring when i was a kid, but as an adult i find that activity is rather boring. so today’s post is a lesson in using crayons to make decorative papers by melting them into puddles on a hot plate.
to start, get a hot plate with a glass top… the glass makes it easy to wipe the melted crayon off it. i’ve never tried a teflon-coated one, but that might work too. get a box of crayons–any kind will work, they don’t have to be fancy, altho the metallic or sparkle ones add a beautiful sheen and sparkle to the color. finally, you’ll need a stack of regular 4×6 blank index cards… i prefer the ones without any lines, but you can use those and just decorate the side without lines (obviously).
let the hot plate get good and hot, then rub a crayon on it. allow a good amount of crayon to melt into a puddle. you can experiment with how much is “good” enough, but it’s more than you might think. then just play! i usually stick with 2 or 3 colors, to prevent the colors from mixing into mud. remember your color theory: complementary colors will make… brown. so when using more than 2 colors i separate colors that are complementary with a color they are next to on the color wheel.
once you have the puddles of color, take an index card and lay it on top of the puddles, then smoosh it around a bit. when you pick it up, do so with flair… a swoop before you pick it up creates nice streaks and swirls. this is the fun part… as you see in the picture above, the pink and green would make brown if smooshed together, so i have the blue in between them. once you’re tired of a color, wipe off the excess with a dry paper towel, making sure to get all the colored wax off so it won’t mix with the next colors.
don’t worry if every centimeter isn’t covered with color… white spots are o.k… but if you don’t want a white spot, just put the card back down on a patch of melted crayon to fill it in. here are some examples of finished color-coated cards. i usually make quite a stack at one time.
once you’ve made the papers, you’ll figure out how you want to use them, but my favorite way (by far) is to use them to cut out shapes with punches. i love love love this vase punch by McGill. turn the punch over so you can see what you are punching out.
here is a finished card with the vase punched out of the pink/green crayon paper.
here is a suite of cards that i made to thank Justin’s teachers, aides, and occupational therapist at school. the decorative background paper is by my favorite company, Basic Grey. the flowers were stamped with photopolymer stamps by Paper Trey Ink.
this is a detail from another card i made. the butterflies were created with the crayon papers and a punch by Martha Stewart. you can see that lots of different punches will work well. the swirls of melted crayon really make the punched out object look dimensional, no?