DIY Melted Crayon Picture With a Glue Gun

5 Materials
$9
30 Minutes
Medium
I'm sure you've all seen those pictures on Pinterest of the cute couple under the umbrella in silhouette with rainbow rain falling around them. They claim you can do it with crayons and a blow dryer. Well, either my blow dryer isn't very warm or I don't have enough patience (probably both), because I was never able to get that trick to work for me. (You real DIY-ers can stop laughing now.) Here's how you do it with a hot glue gun instead.




























First step: Get a hot glue gun that you don't care about. Because you are unlikely to be able to use this glue gun for much other than crayons after this. I bought this mini glue gun at Walmart for less than $5 years ago, and I figured I could handle retiring it from producing hot glue to producing hot colored wax.
Next, you'll need a mirror or canvas, something to use as your base. I used a cheap Dollar Tree mirror, but you could use whatever you'd like.
Now you need a silhouette. I used an image rendered onto adhesive vinyl with my Cricut machine. You could cut something out by hand with scissors and/or an X-Acto knife. (Did you know that's a brand name? I didn't until I wrote this post. You experienced crafters and artists can stop laughing at me now.)
If your image is adhesive vinyl, applying it is super simple. If it's regular construction paper, you can apply it with a glue stick, but you have to be careful. You don't want to get glue smudges all over the mirror.
Now, pick the colors of crayons you want and lay them out in the order you want. I used a rainbow set, but I've seen people use only different shades of blue or yellow. You can even scavenge crayons from your child's craft box. Just pick according to your taste and current home decor. Remove all the paper from your crayons. This would also be a good time to heat up your glue gun.
Click through to my blog post for the rest of the steps! If you're anything like me, you'll need some of these tips and lessons I learned from my own experience!
Suggested materials:
  • Mirror   (Dollar Tree)
  • Mini Hot Glue Gun   (Walmart)
  • Adhesive Vinyl   (Amazon)
See all materials
Michelle Lindsey Hutchins
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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Frequently asked questions
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  2 questions
  • Marti Lou Marti Lou on Apr 14, 2017

    What's a cricut machine? Where do you get them? How much do they cost? Do they come with sheets of vinyl? Thanks! Great project!

  • Samantha K Williams Samantha K Williams on Apr 21, 2017

    What a beautiful piece of art. For the cut out, did you use card stock or a piece of thick or heavy weight paper, or is this the standard weight copypaper?

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  • G G on May 03, 2017

    I did this on some clay pots I got for cheap at the end of summer last year (huge $35 pots I got for $7 each). I painted them with gray-white primer to adhere to the clay (and because terra really isn't much of a base color), melted the crayons (it takes forever to get the paper off the crayons, the whole melting crayons task is time and labor intensive), and added a couple layers of clear coat to make it shiny.

    • Donna Lord Donna Lord on May 03, 2017
      Well G, I must give you major KUDOS!! I absolutely LOVE these pots. This is a fantastic project and I do LOVE rainbows. Thanks for sharing your pic.
  • Teala Williams Teala Williams on Jun 13, 2017

    Personaly not a fan of the crayon but love the silioute

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