Ah, crayons…such versatile, waxy, brightly pigmented goodness! My little girls have a couple of nice boxes of unbroken, new-ish crayons reserved for schoolwork and special art projects, and a giant bin of broken, half-wrapped, stubby, old crayons, gathered here and there and everywhere, that we use for everything else.
Old crayons may seem like a nuisance to have underfoot, but they are incredible art supplies, and you can make some surprisingly sophisticated creations with them. Here are five projects, from canvas art to kid crafts, to get you started:
You can color with crayons, sure, but you can also do a lot of other things with that wax and pigment. For beautiful abstract canvas art, try your hand at crayon encaustic art–all you need are some unwrapped crayons, a canvas to work on, and a candle!
To easily unwrap a crayon, slice the paper wrapper all the way down the side of the crayon (carefully!) with an x-acto knife, then simply slip the wrapper off.
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For encaustic art with bigger impact, we glue wrapped crayons to stretched canvas, blast it with an embossing gun, and end up with a melted crayon canvas artwork that looks pretty great hanging over the couch in the living room.
You can even use hot glue to adhere the crayons to the canvas–hot glue melts, sure, but at a higher temperature than the crayons, so you won’t melt it just by melting the crayons.
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If we’re in the mood for a quick kids’ craft, or we need a present to take to a child’s birthday party, my little girls and I often make these simple recycled crayons. They’re easy to do, not very messy, and if you have any of those silicon or other novelty muffin tins lying about, then you can use them to mold your crayons into a variety of shapes that will delight a variety of kids.
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If I have a little more time on my hands, however, I prefer the neater, more professional appearance of layered crayons. You can make these in your standard muffin tins, as well, but if you have any re-usable popsicle molds that you’re willing to hand over to crafts, then you can experiment with a wider variety of crayon layers and patterns and colors.
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Looking for Christmas gifts yet? This crayon monogram from Frugal Life Project is especially nice because 1) you get to use broken crayons and 2) you don’t have to peel them!
To make these straight, even cuts (which is at least half the charm of the monogram), score all the way around the crayon with an x-acto knife, break the crayon at the score, and then sand or cut away any sticky-outy bits.
[Image by Frugal Life Project, used with attribution]
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The melted crayon canvas artwork is pretty neat and have now seen them everywhere. I would not however consider it to be upcycled at all though since they are new, personally I think it would of been more useful to donate to a kid/school (as far as talking about upcycle, reduce and whatnot) but hey that’s just me and my HO…
Good point! You could probably make a crayon canvas work by using half-used crayons that are still in their wrappers, or at least still have some wrapper to work with. We homeschool, and so we have a couple of nice boxes of “school” crayons, mostly so that I know that my kiddos have a complete box with a full spectrum of colors for their schoolwork. If a crayon gets more than 1/3 used, however, it’s too hard for little fingers to get it out of the box, and so I generally replace that color and toss the used crayon in our crayon crafts bin. Those different-sized crayons might make an even more interesting crayon canvas…