Grating Crayons

I wrote this post as the Featured Artist at Ideas for Scrapbookers and wanted to share it here.

Lead Fiskateer Tami Bayer asked a question recently about the strangest thing we had on our scrap tables.  My answer was this:

Like many of you, we have plenty of these:

How do they go together? It's simple! After peeling the wrappers off all those broken crayons, grate them over a piece of paper. I prefer a lightweight, non-textured cardstock, but just about any type of paper will work. Depending on the look you want, you can use a variety of colors with either heavy or light coverage.

When you are happy with how the shavings look on your paper, cover it gently with wax paper and iron on the lowest setting. You will be able to see through the wax paper to know when all the shavings are melted. Remove the wax paper and your new paper is ready to use! If you decide you want a heavier application of color, simply grate more crayons on the paper and iron it again.

I should mention that my mini-grater lives permanently in my craft room. It is very difficult to completely clean the crayon off the grater. Fortunately, it is easy to find very inexpensive mini-graters at kitchen stores.

Here are some of the projects I've made using this technique:

Trevor and I made these cute tags for our Christmas gifts.

I cut a simple flower from my crayon melt paper to make a thank-you card.

This is a quick bookmark I made to put on a Valentine's gift.

You could use this crayon melt technique for accents, embellishments or even whole sheets of paper. Because crayons are acid-free, this paper is safe to use on your layouts as well. Experiment and have fun!