We peeled and melted crayons ALL afternoon yesterday. It was so much fun. I haven't done that since *I* was a kid. We'll attach all the art to card folds eventually, but for now the 2 middles are trading.

My 3 oldest children, l to r; dane, madison and forrest. We waited for gusty's nap for this project. :smirk:
http://www.amitymama.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=58029&d=1141196814

wow that looks great.. i love the smell of wax,,, so you will make birthday cards etc out of them?

Wow...I have not done that in ages...LOL!! What fun!

Cool! And it's funnny that you did that yesterday because that's what we were doing most of yesterday ...melting wax for candles and crayons!

Yes, we'll trim them all down and turn them into birthday and misc cards.

Bonnie, you've made crayons? Like from scratch or from old crayons? I've failed miserably over and over to make beeswax crayons. I have so much invested in materials that I could have bought the entire neighborhood a box of stockmars. :lol:

Nature of the beast with crafters tho, isn't it? The old "eh I can make that" gets me every time.

So - how did you make these? I love it!

Cool! They look like stained glass.

So - how did you make these? I love it!

Ok, here we go, a craft along ( I took in process photos just in case! :p )

Supplies:
peeled crayons
white paper (we used card stock)
old electric fry pan on the lowest setting. I used a lefse griddle but that's all I had.
paper towels

Supplies:
http://www.amitymama.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=58031&d=1141240976



Melt the crayons on the skillet. (low setting, or the crayons will smoke)

http://www.amitymama.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=58032&d=1141240985

Lay paper onto the melted wax, then lift paper off, image will go with the paper.
http://www.amitymama.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=58033&d=1141240991

Wipe skillet clean with paper towels....you'll go through a lot.

Afterwards, to fully clean skillet, take heat up a little higher so all residue will melt and release.

Oh now that is way cool.

One more reason I just HAVE to have an electric skillet :D

So - do you think I could do it on a flat skillet on the electric stovetop? Or would the stovetop be too hot? Think my chef dh will let me use is good flat skillet for melting crayons??? LOL!

Recycled crayons, not from scratch, although that is on my list of projects to try this spring. We had so much fun making the recycled crayons and Kenna was thinking too that she wanted to make "real" crayons, from scratch. I'll report back with how it goes once we try it :)

So - do you think I could do it on a flat skillet on the electric stovetop? Or would the stovetop be too hot? Think my chef dh will let me use is good flat skillet for melting crayons??? LOL!

Well, what he doesn't know won't kill him. LOL. Seriously tho, I know some people get a little wigged about mixing cooking and crafting utensils. If his is a good cast iron, you may not be able to get the "pores" to give up the wax.

If you have an old flat skillet or fry pan that you don't care about, I'd use that. The black crayon dye was hard to lift from the stainless surface.

My lefse iron has a temp guide and we didn't heat over 200 degrees. I don't know what temp "simmer" is on a stove top. Remove from heat as necessary, I suppose.

It's always an adventure...that's for sure.

I'm going to try to find an electric skillet at a garage sale just for this sort of stuff. I destroyed a pan last fall melting beeswax. What a mess!! lol.

***
Bonnie, definately let me know how the crayons work out. I super saturated beeswax with tempra paint and used a cornstarch binder and still it was like coloring with a candle. ARGH!!

Katie, I usually just melt my beeswax in a glass pyrex measuring cup in the microwave.

I have all this lip balm coloring and occassionally I wonder if I could use it to make crayons - of course then I remember how much the colorant costs and well, reason takes over :D

You know, I should just stalk goodwill for an electric skillet - in all my 'free' time!

Katie, I usually just melt my beeswax in a glass pyrex measuring cup in the microwave.

I have all this lip balm coloring and occassionally I wonder if I could use it to make crayons - of course then I remember how much the colorant costs and well, reason takes over :D

You know, I should just stalk goodwill for an electric skillet - in all my 'free' time!

omgoodness. lol. When I started looking at cosmetic grade colorant I realized it was time to surrender to stockmar.

Thanks for the beeswax tip. We really like dipping pinecones in beeswax (plain and extra-scented) so that will make next fall's dip fest much easier.

That is so cool looking! Those would make awsome postcards, or cut outs for projects. :D

Val

That is so cool looking! Those would make awsome postcards, or cut outs for projects. :D

Val

Or embellishments on those snazzy books you've been making. :)

soooo trying to figure this out. when you lift the image from the skillet does it actually have a thick portion of the wax on it or just the color? trying to figure if it would peel off or if it is just the color. bet you can tell i've never done this...even as a child lol :)

soooo trying to figure this out. when you lift the image from the skillet does it actually have a thick portion of the wax on it or just the color? trying to figure if it would peel off or if it is just the color. bet you can tell i've never done this...even as a child lol :)

The wax goes with the color. If there's a very thin layer of wax on the skillet, on the transfer to paper it will look mostly like color with a sheen. If there's a lot of wax on the skillet, it'll look like wax on paper.

We did a lot and we did a little and none of it chipped off or cracked. I just bent a piece almost to a crease and it didn't crack.

Katie