Recently, I’ve gotten into Pinterest, and have found a million-and-one project ideas that I’ve filed away for a rainy day. I’ve always been fascinated by art, and creativity has always held a significant place in my heart.

I’ve been wanting to create a large piece of art to fill this vacant spot above my couch in my apartment living room since I moved in July 2011, and this DIY melted crayon art project seemed like the perfect option! In October, I bought quite a few boxes of Crayola crayons (1 box of 96 crayons, 1x24, 3x8; some other blogs said to buy Crayola because they melt better than other brands) on sale at Hobby Lobby, and in December I purchased the 30”x40” canvas on sale at Michael’s, along with a low heat glue gun. Total cost of the project was less than $38! Easiest, fastest art project, with a huge bang for it’s buck!

First, arrange your crayons in your preferred order, and hot glue them to the canvas, with the pointed tips aimed in the direction you would like them to melt. (One website suggested using foam board, but I prefer the sturdier canvas.) I arranged my crayons along a color spectrum twice through, occassionally disrupting the pattern with some lighter or darker shades for a unique accent. On my canvas, they are in a straight line across the top of the canvas, but I considered gradually raising and lowering the crayons to make a wave effect across the top portion of the canvas, or gradually lowering them to make a diagonal line across the canvas. Marianne and I placed the crayons in order on my table, and then she put the glue on the crayon and handed it to me to place on the canvas, which probably cut our time in half.

Next, stand the canvas up on a drop cloth so the crayons point downward, and melt them using your standard hair dryer on high heat! :) This is the coolest and most rewarding part of the project, and altogether the process is instantly gratifying. After Marianne and I had one go at melting the crayons, we let them cool and dry again and then went over the canvas a second time, focusing on the already melted crayon wax to make it drip further down the canvas. One fun thing about this project is, you could take it off the wall and put a hair dryer to it to change it again in the future, and create a new effect!

Sidenote: You may consider using a hair dryer with an attachment that can blow the air in one direction, as using my hair dryer that doesn’t have the attachment resulted in the color melting out to the left and right of the crayon, as well as down, which blended the colors more than what I’ve seen in others’ attempts on Pinterest. Personally, I like the effect my dryer produced, as it also added a splatter effect to the canvas, but it is definitely personal preference.

I finally got around to hanging my canvas last week, and couldn’t be happier with the end product! I chose to hang mine with the crayons melting downward, but considered flipping it for awhile, as that creates a cool effect as well.

I’m considering repeating this project with 5-7 small canvases for my office, and having each as a different color block, arranging the crayons in different ways for each canvas and hanging them with the melting facing in varying directions. If you try it, I would love to see photos of your final projects!