Personalized Crayon Art

More inspiration from pinterest! There have been tons of crayon art floating around, but most of them are just "melted rainbows". They're cute, but the same. I saw one where it was all blue crayons that looked like rain and a couple under an umbrella. That was so sweet (and expensive! $75!). So, I went to Walmart and got 3 small canvases for $3 and two 64 packs of "Cra-Z-Art" crayons for $2 each. And borrowed my hubbies heat gun.

I decided to do the boys names in the melted crayon. Since Pete's home sick, we did his name first. I let him pick out he colors, with the explicit instructions "No black, no brown, it'll look like poop". Since he has the stomach bug, he got that, and we didn't have any issues :)

I printed out his name, and taped it to painters tape, that I had layered on tin foil. I cut out the letters to make the "negative stencils"



I then attempted to peel the foil off the back. I think next time, I'm going to use wax paper, since that wasn't as easy as I hoped. Then, just place the tape on the canvas, hot glue down the crayons (Pete wanted them on the canvas with all of the color names showing).



Then, I fired up the heat gun on low and let her rip! We went back and forth a few times. Depending on how high on the crayon you apply the heat, it cools at different rates, so you see the "dyed canvas" right at the tip, and the chunkier wax near the bottom. After it cooled a bit, I took a sharp edge and traced the letters to separate the wax. I did lose some (like the insides of the "e"), but, all in all, it worked really well. Pete asked me to outline the letters to make them easier to read, so I grabbed and sharpie, and we ended up with this:



Pete said it's awesome! And it gave us something fun to do on a sick day. I just need to make on for my little kiddo, but I'll let him pick out the colors...

Suuuper Caaapes!

Please tell me you read that in the Superman voice-over voice, because that's how it was written!

Anyhoo, about a month ago, I discover Pinterest. It is the most dangerous website on the planet, as it gives you all of this false motivation that you're actually capable of doing crafts, making adorable cupcakes, cooking gourmet meals and dressing impeccably. I've gotten sucked into the cooking, baking and crafting section. I saw a how-to on taking old t-shirts and turning them into capes, and another how-to on stenciling using freezer paper. Since I haven't the foggiest idea what freezer paper is, and I have Glad Press'n Seal (which I HATE for using on food, love for using on non-food things), I figured I'd give this a shot.

I bought 2 cheapy t-shirts at Walmart, since the boys wanted particular colors, removed the sleeves and the front, leaving just the neck hole attached to the back. Instant cape! For safety's sake, I'm going to cut the neck, glue in some velcro, so it's quick release (that's the engineer in me coming out).

To make the stencils, I went on line and found black and white versions of the logos the boys requests. Then, I just covered the logo with the Press'n Seal (from here on out PNS, cause I'm tired of typing Press'n Seal already).



Then, just cut out the logo, keeping the parts that you want to leave UNPAINTED. I know, stencils are backwards. There's a 50% chance you're going to get the negative image of what you were going for. Lie, say it was on purpose!

Now, here's the hard part. Peel the PNSoff the paper. Easy, right? HA! I ended up using the universal solvent: Mom Spit. Just wet the paper a bit, and it'll peel right off the PNS.

Attach the PNS to the shirt, adjusting as needed. With the Superman logo, I reassembled the whole logo on the cape, then attached one PNS at a time in the empty hole. Everything was pretty darn close to even.



Walmart only had spray on fabric paint, so I sprayed then used a foam brush to even it out.



Due to the dark color of the capes, I used about 4 coats (spray, brush, repeat). I let the paint dry just long enough to wash the brush, and then removed the PNS. Yippee!! It worked!



The details aren't terribly crisp around the edges, but, it came out pretty darn well.



Ok, the bat's ears are barely there, but MY batman is 4. From his point of view, I just made him something that can deflect bullets.