Crayon Art

About a month ago a girlfriend of mine introduced me to Pinterest.com...Oh lordy.  I'm addicted is an understatement but it's a good thing because I've come across some really great ideas and have created a seperate journal just for those items (more on journaling in a future post...stay tuned).  I will I'm sure in the coming days, weeks, and months be doing A LOT of blogging about my new Pinterest activities. 

So one of the ideas that I came across was crayon art. When I first saw it I thought "Wow, that is really cool, I might try that sometime" and then I realized it would make a really great Christmas gift for someone.

I purchased a pack of two canvases at Walwart for around $6.00, crayons (I had to use 1 1/2 packs of 24 crayons) $1.44, Tacky glue $2.00 and the blow dryer at home....

I also purchased a book of quotes ($5.99 at Hobby Lobby) to add a little something to the piece of art...

I layed out the crayons the way that I wanted them, in this case I used the primary color index but the possibilites are endless.

I also put on the sticker quote that I liked the best.  After all the crayons were glued I let it sit for about 45 minutes to ensure they were on there securely.  I've seen some versions with the wrapper off but I felt that the wrapper made it more playful.

Once I was sure the crayons were set I began the melting process.  Now let me just say at this point, I was having doubts.  Doubts that it work, doubts that if it worked that it would look good, but they were quickly put to rest.  The great thing about this is that it really doesn't matter what the end result is.  I tried varied heat settings, if I felt like it was melting too quickly or moving down the canvas I either put the hair dyrer on a cool setting or changed the angle of the canvas, also tilting it different ways to have the crayon colors blend and what do you know....it worked!!!!

Tada!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Cheap instant artwork.

I saw one version of this in which someone had used only browns and greens and then after it had dried they put stickable flowers at the top.  In yet another version somonee used pieces of crayon instead of the whole thing.  I also think that a larger canvas would have looked even cooler as the crayons would have really melted, not only at the top but all the way down.  The possiblities are endless and you can make this a really personal gift for someone: use their favorite color in the shape of their inital for a birthday present use only reds and pinks in the shape of a heart for Valentine's Day.  A word of advice.  In this particular case they are lined up so the direction in which you held it really didn't matter, however if you are doing something as mention directly above, rotating the canvas would be recommended or it will run onto itself....then again maybe that would look really cool.  I'm sure I will be trying many of these versions in the coming weeks.  I'll share when I do.  =)