Halloween is just around the corner and as a family, we always try and make it as crafty as possible. Therefore this year, we decided to do something I’ve been wanting to try for ages. We made a huge mess and melted crayons onto canvas.
Well, sort of. We didn’t have any paper big enough but we did have some conference stand boards that had been in the cupboard for a while. So with a quick wipe down, we cut them into three and we were ready to go.
We had previously bought two multicoloured boxes of crayons. We poured them all out and got straight to peeling off the paper wrappers. Once they were all done we sorted out the colours. Mum had already decided that she wanted to do a giant pumpkin so she called dibs on the oranges, yellows, reds and blacks. I liked the blues, purples and pinks so I thought it would be quite pretty to do a silhouetted city landscape. My younger brother, Jacob, chose the many shades of greens, browns and greys and was mainly just excited at making a mess.
None of us wanted the crayons to be glued onto our boards. To fix this, we clamped the crayons together with two pieces of wood and hand clamps. It worked like a charm. It also had the added bonus that we could move certain colours to where we wanted them and we could fill the whole canvas with ease.
So we set to work, we covered the area to protect it and whipped out our hot air gun (as we had already discovered that our hairdryer wasn’t powerful enough to melt it properly). Jake’s was up first. At first, it was just a bunch of blobs but once the wax started dripping down the page properly, it resembled a rather dense forest. It was especially spectacular as it wasn’t planned at all. Go Jake!
Next it was my turn and I was determined to make it turn out how it looked in my head. So I found some masking tape and taped up some rectangular buildings of all shapes and sizes. Once I was happy with that, we got to the messy part. I’d separated the pinks from the blues and purples as I was concerned they’d get lost in the dark colours. Nevertheless, we got both sets of crayons melted and mixed rather well.
Eventually I was happy with it. After waiting for it to dry, we peeled off the tape and I painted the landscape black.
Finally it was Mum’s turn. Her canvas was bigger than mine and Jake’s so we had more area to cover. Regardless, we set to work and made a giant pumpkin out of shiny aluminium tape. It took a longer time than we were expecting but the results were worth it. Then we set out as we had done before and got to melting.
It went everywhere! When we were done, we had to spend a good amount of time peeling and wiping the crayon off the pumpkin. No matter how much we tried though, it refused to go away completely. Feeling slightly defeated, we just added more tape.
It was all worth it though! They all look amazing and they all have a Halloween feel to them. It was seriously good fun and the results are amazing! Surprisingly, we didn’t even make that much mess.
Cerys