Day 45: Crayon Melting Project

On day 45, I was supposed to create an image with tape.

Boy, was this a big project!!!

I collaborated a few pinterest ideas together for this one.  One from Craftzine where you take an old thrift store painting, tape letters on it, then paint over it.  I also used the idea that's all over pinterest where you melt crayons to make art, from 52 Kitchen Adventures.


I will have to go through this one step by step. It was long, tedious, and messy.

I started with this canvas painting that I found on clearance at Michael's about a year ago for $6.  I've been waiting to tackle a project I could use it for.



I decided on which quote I would want to put on the painting.  I needed one that I could use in my classroom, and I decided on, "Mistakes are proof that you are trying."

I used painter's tape to start making the letters.  This was very time consuming and the letters weren't coming out as perfect as I would like, so it was time to re-think my strategy.


I ended up sticking a bunch of tape on a piece of wax paper, writing the bubble letters on the tape, cutting them out, peeling off the back, and sticking them on.  SO much easier, and SO much prettier!



Originally, I was going to just spray paint over the letters once I stuck them on there, but at the last minute I was inspired to do the melting crayon thing.  I tried a few different versions.  First, I used an old hot glue gun and put the crayons in there.  This was very time consuming, so once again I had to re-think my plan.  I didn't have room above where it says, 'Mistakes' to put the row of crayons vertically, so I only put a few crayons horizontally across the top.  I then used a hair dryer to melt the crayons completely away and push the wax down to the paper.  This was very messy and took FOREVER.



When I was finished, I peeled off the tape.  The tape actually did a pretty good job of keeping the shape of the letters, but I felt like you couldn't see the letters very well because the background wasn't all the same color and it all mixed in with the colors of the crayons.  This would have been much better on a white canvas, solid colored, or if I had painted it before.

So, once again, I had to re-think my plan.  I went back to the glue gun, inserted a white crayon in there, and started pumping away again.  I filled in all the letters. I also made them drip a little to look more like mistakes.  Again, this took forever.  And, as you can see it took awhile for the red to phase out and the wax to be completely white, so some of the letters were pink.

Overall, I am glad I finished the project and didn't give up, but I also think I could make it better next time. I'm glad I finally tried out that crayon melting thing.

Look at the mess!!!