Color My World

There is a crafty lady on Etsy whose picture has been circulating around on Pinterest and it completely infatuated me. http://www.etsy.com/shop/JKCreate

I am in LOVE with this woman and I don't even know her name (yep, just went old school Alan Jackson for you)

Anyways, while at Walmart- you know, stocking up like the rest of the state for the hurricane- this morning I passed the back to school aisle and a old familiar friend caught my eye. yellow and green, there in all her glory... the 64 count Crayola crayon box! and then and there I knew that today would be the day-

So without further ado. my craft hack project for the day!

Step one: pull out all of your crayons and arrange them how ever you want them to go. I pulled out all of the browns and grey/blacks but they kind of make it easy for you because there are only really 9 paper colors

Amounts: 12in canvas needs 35 crayons, 16in canvas needs 46/47 crayons and a 24in canvas needs 70 crayons

Step two: hot glue them to the top of your canvas (make sure to hot glue towards the butt of the crayon/top of the canvas, not towards the tip)

I thought about lining up all of the Crayola logos but in the end that looked too cookie cutter/OCD for my tastes though I was channeling Dad and MaryLynn and tried it so I just went willy-nilly, making sure to have fun color names like Macaroni 'n Cheese and Tickle Me Pink facing outwards

Step three: get your hairdryer on hot but low and just start blowing (you are suppose to use a heat gun but whatever works, right)

Now heres where I want to share some tips for anyone who wants to try this, or for me to remember the next time I make one. The beginning is slow... focus on the tips and start on one side. I did reds and oranges just barely getting the yellows until the reds and oranges started running, then picked up a little green and focused on oranges and yellows, and so on.

MY BIGGEST TIP: shoot it from behind the canvas!

when you use the hair dryer on the front the air blows your colors all together. kinda cool but you don't get the nice streaking effect downwards, it all blends (see pinks). if you shoot it from behind you get nice pretty lines (see blues). From the back you can also help work some of the bigger clumps move down

Another tip: be careful when you are about to loose the tip. once the tip is gone there is kind of a flood of wax (see middle green crayon in the pictures below) I personally like the look of the empty tube of paper but, do you see how that streak went all the way down the canvas?.. yes, a lot of green wax shot out.

I WOULD have LOVED to have had that happen with every crayon; just have the crayon paper left and gorgeous streaks flowing down but my hairdryer died on me! I was so mad. You better believe I packed the boys up to head to Walmart for the 2nd time in 12 hours and got a new one but it was so sad. The heats weren't the same, the wax drippings had already dried but I hadn't gotten to the purples yet when it happened so my wax art has two distinct sides. Not ideal

Third tip: only work on the tip. I was shooting the middle of the crayon paper and all of a sudden a huge chunk of unmelted wax slimmed down the canvas (the big orange glob below) because I had melted it enough that it was melted away from the paper but the heat had kind of broken the crayon in two. not a pretty sight. Colossal chunk of orange still shaped like a crayon stick stuck there between pretty drippings.

Fourth and final tip: don't glue the crayons all the way to the edges. You can't get behind the canvas on the very ends because of the wood frame and its hard to get your wax to flow straight down while only blowing the hairdryer downward from the tip of your crayon.

So here is the final product! well almost final

I want to add the quote "Every Child is an Artist"- Pablo Picasso but just don't know just how I want to do it yet. when I do get it finished and up I'll make sure to post a picture!