Pinteresting Summer

Challenge 31 (and 32)- Nieman Marcus brownies and Crayola art (It's a Pinterest Win Day) Part 2

Now on to our melted crayon art. I believe it is impossible to have been on Pinterest for even a day and not have seen one of these projects. I have seen them turn out beautifully and I have seen them in upper realms of epic faildom. I truly believe that the difference between success and failure is materials and attention to detail.

Here are our supplies (all purchased at Michael's Craft Store) and my friend (who happens to work for Michael's) also had an embossing tool that I believe is key to the success of the project (also purchased at Michael's, she said in the 20 dollar range, 15% off if your a teacher *shameless plug inserted here*)

Our lovely assistant returned and we very carefully arranged the crayons we wanted in rainbow order (ROYGBIV anyone). We didn't use any browns, black, or grays (I believe another reason for some of the uglier versions of this project). My friend quickly hot glued the crayons in order on the top of the canvas, keeping them as even as possible.

We took them outside and put an old flattened cardboard box underneath (very important, don't forget this unless you want a multi-colored crayon dots decorating your patio). We aimed the embossing tool fairly close to the crayons, slightly above the double black lines and slowly moved the heat down to the next color trying to let everything melt at an equal pace.

You have to move slow to prevent splatter and not too close to the crayon or it starts to pool and that color takes over. We did the same thing to my canvas and this is how both turned out.

My friend decided to melt a silver crayon near hers and let it make cool silver dots on her canvas as well.

So here are my tips to making this project work.
1. Only use Crayola crayons, I haven't seen any of these go as well with Rose Art of any of the generic brand crayons.
2. Invest in the embossing gun, it worked so much better than the hair dryer, didn't allow for nearly as much splatter and I'm sure could be used for other things to make the purchase worth it (and buy it at Micheal's with a 40% coupon-last shameless plug I promise)
3. Don't use browns, black, or grays unless you are doing a small selection of just those colors. They just take over and the color blending ends up looking blah)
4. Take your time and don't rush, if you want it to look nice, invest some time in the creation of the piece.

The next time I try this I want to buy one of the black canvases (yes they make those now) and do this with blues and purples. It's always a good day when you can have a double Pinterest win and spend time with one of your favorite people.