Guest Post: Crayon Art!

Hi everyone! I'm still in Florida with my family, but my friend Katie is here to tell you about an awesome pinterest project she recently tackled. Take it away, Katie:

Hello Calli's awesome readers! I am here to tell you about the exciting world of Crayon Art! What is crayon art? Well I am so glad you asked. No it's not a cute little drawing your five year old made that is now hanging, in all it's glory, on your fridge. But rather a fun, colorful, EASY, new fad, that is all the rage.

Crayon Art is basically hot gluing crayons * crayola works best* to a canvas of any size. Then taking a hairdryer to the crayons and letting them melt down the canvas.

My husband and I recently celebrated our 2 year anniversary (woohoo!) and I thought this would make a creative gift :). I decided in the center of the picture I would put a silhouette of one of our engagement photos.

I printed the photo (shown here ) on computer paper , making it so that Jon and I were about 8 inches. From there I  cut it out using a single edge razor. (Heads up, that takes longer than you think haha).

I then  traced it on the center of the canvas. (I went with  a 16x20 inch size). Once traced I filled it in with a relatively new permanent black marker. The newer the marker the better, then  you don't end up with streaks in your silhouette.

From there I  took the 4 packs of crayons and sorted them in a rainbow pattern and hot glued them to the top of the canvas. Next I took masking tape and covered the silhouette so that the wax would melt around it and not cover it up. *I recommend not using masking tape. Painters tape might be best . The tape I used was quite old and the wax actually got underneath it messing up the silhouette. *

Now the fun part! I highly suggest laying down a tarp for this. Crayons can make a huge mess! I propped the picture up against a wall and took a hairdryer to the crayons. They began to melt immediately. You can have fun with the picture by changing the angle of the hairdryer which in turn will change the direction the crayon melts. After a few minutes you have this,

I had a lot of fun with this project but was not 100% pleased with the results. But it's so easy anyone can do it!

A few tips I've come up with:

• Use strong new tape. Because the silhouette is marker you don't need to worry about the tape pulling anything off.
• Although I enjoy the pattern of a rainbow I would not put purple and blue together again. The colors are so close it's hard to tell them apart. 
• If you are OCD like me  ;) I would pay more attention to the placement of the crayons so that they are in a straight line. Alternatively you could glue the crayons to a second canvas and place that above the silhouette canvas. They way you can melt the crayons and the was will drip down onto the second silhouette canvas. And that way you wont have any actual crayons on the "painting"

So now that you see how easy it is you should grab some crayons and do one of your own :) .

Thanks for sharing Katie! Seriously, how amazing is that? I am so inspired by her work that I'm now searching through my wedding and engagement photos trying to find a good silhouette for this project. Should we all do one and meet back here to share our creations?