Colorful Melted Crayon Art With LEGO DUPLO:
Is there a particular smell that instantly takes you back to the happiest days of your childhood?
For me, it’s buttercream icing on birthday cakes and the smell of Crayola crayons. Neither of those things were a staple during my childhood in Denmark. However, they were leftover remnants of the few years we lived in the States before moving to Denmark.
When crayons go on sale after the kids are back to school, I stock up. I don’t mean “I buy an extra box or two.” No – I STOCK UP ON CRAYONS as if we are facing the biggest crayon shortage this side of the millennium. To me, there’s nothing like opening a fresh box of 24 brand new Crayola crayons. The colors, the smell… I instantly become a little girl, fascinated by the rainbow of colors before me.
This year, I decided to put some of my (many) boxes of crayons to good use, combining them with the other sweet memory from my childhood – DUPLO LEGO, and I have to say, Crayola Crayon and DUPLO LEGO go together like peanut butter and jelly… or cookies and milk.
Check out these pictures! Don’t you agree?
Supplies needed to make the melted crayon art with DUPLO LEGO:
- Wrapped white canvas.
- Sizes 4″x4″ or 5″x5″ work perfectly.
- (The melted crayon doesn’t look as vibrant on black canvas. I tried it and prefer a white background.)
- Crayola crayons
- (Make sure all the crayons you use are the same brand. I prefer Crayola. They melt at the same temperature and keep their colors equally vibrant. Cheaper brands don’t melt as easily and the results won’t be as smooth and colorful.)
- 4×4 DUPLO bricks that match the crayon colors
- one 2×8 DUPLO brick.
- (This brick won’t become a permanent part of the art. It’s just used to hold the other bricks in place while you glue them onto the canvas.)
- Blow dryer
- (I had to search high and low before I found ours. It’s obviously not something I use every day – or ever.
- Newspaper, craft paper – something to cover the ground, as this can get messy.
- A small box to prop up the canvas and hold it at an angle, so the melting crayons can run down the canvas.
- Hot glue gun
How to create your own melted crayon DUPLO canvas art:
- Measure how many DUPLO bricks fit across the canvas.
- Match the colors of the crayons and DUPLO bricks.
- I found that the basic crayon colors matched the primary DUPLO bricks perfectly, i.e. “red”, “blue”, “yellow”
- Decide on the order you want the colors in, line up the DUPLO bricks AND the crayons.
- Keep the crayons close to your work area.
- Find a large area to do this, cover the ground with newspaper or craft paper. The melted crayon can splatter when you aim the blow dryer at it. (I may or may not be speaking from experience!)
- Prop up the canvas against a small box.
- Start the blow dryer, aim it at the first crayon.
- Hold the crayon about an inch above the canvas.
- It only takes 30 seconds for the crayon to melt.
- When the crayon starts to drip, aim the heat directly at it, while you touch the crayon to the canvas and color the first strip.
- Be sure to drip some crayon along the side and on the top and bottom.
- Once you have the entire length of the canvas covered in your 1” wide strip (approximately), switch colors and start the process over again.
- Overlap the colors a little to get the blended rainbow effect.
- Cover the entire canvas with all the crayons that match your DUPLO bricks, be sure to use them in the correct order.
- Allow the melted crayon to dry completely, which only takes about 30 minutes.
- Fire up your hot glue gun.
- Attach the DUPLO bricks to a long 2×8 piece, so the spacing between the bricks is even.
- Apply glue to the top of the canvas.
- Note that the hot glue will melt some of the crayon, so go easy on the hot glue, so you don’t make a mess.
- Place the DUPLO bricks on the top of the canvas.
- Apply pressure for a few minutes, until the glue hardens a little bit, then remove the larger 2×8 DUPLO brick and let the entire melted crayon DUPLO canvas art dry completely.
- Voila! You have yourself a super pretty, colorful and fun wall decoration!
*** A fun twist: Put a vinyl sticker on the white canvas before you start. Either a first initial, a motivational word or an image. Follow all the above directions. Before the crayon has hardened completely, use a sharp object to lift up a corner of the vinyl sticker and remove it – leaving the white canvas shining through. ***
Have fun with this project – the possibilities are endless. The best part, it’s a forgiving craft project, easy set up and clean up – as long as you remember to cover the ground.
Please share your own creative uses in the comments, so we can all learn and grow creatively.
Don’t miss these other fun ways to get creative with canvas…
