Crafts, Drawing ideas for kids, Stained glass & sun catchers

Melted Crayon Stained Glass Window

June 4, 2012

We have a new melted crayon stained glass window!

So, you know I’m a sucker for stained glass art projects. And that we are always using our windows as art display space. And I think you also know that we love all kinds of melted crayon art projects in our house, including melted crayon rocks, stained glass, seasonal suncatchers, and various watercolor resists.

So you might not be surprised that we’ve combined all of the above for our latest stained glass door.

Here’s how we did it, with all the step-by-step photos and commentary for those who find them helpful.

Melted Crayon Stained Glass Window

MATERIALS

Thin paper such as printer paper
Crayons
Cookie sheet
Vegetable oil

INSTRUCTIONS

First, I cut the paper to fit the window panes. I held the sheet of paper to the window and used a pen to score and mark where I should cut. Easy peasy. We have nine panes in this window and I cut a few extra, just in case.

We used cheap copy paper, because it’s sturdy enough for the melted crayon drawing but thin enough for the stained glass part.

I set up our drawing stations with a folded over towel to protect the table, a cookie sheet, a piece of paper cut to size, an oven mitt, and some crayons.

I put the cookie sheet into a 300 degree Fahrenheit oven for a few minutes to heat up, then transferred it to the drawing station. Maia protected her left hand with the oven mit and carefully drew with her right.

As she drew on the paper over the hot cookie sheet, the crayon melted, creating super vibrant lines. The slower the drawing, the more the crayon melted.

How to Make Melted Crayon Stained Glass Drawings

You can see the difference between the melted crayon and the regular crayon drawings in the sun on the left. The cookie sheet was nicely hot while she slowly and lovingly created the yellow center. By the time, she moved on to the decorated outer ring of the sun, the cookie sheet had cooled off and the drawings were more like regular crayon drawings. We reheated the cookie sheet before she drew the rays of the sun, which again melted beautifully and vibrantly.

By the way, we’ve done these with both wax crayons and soy crayons and both work equally well.

Melted crayon art is for kids who are old enough to maintain caution and work safely around the hot cookie sheet. Daphne (at 2 1/2) is not there yet. However, I didn’t want her to feel left out as Maia and I worked, so I created the same set-up for her (towel, cookie sheet, paper, crayons, oven mitt). The only difference was that her cookie sheet was NOT heated. She even kept the oven mitt on her hand while she worked at first, but then decided it just got in her way.

Also, you can see that she’s working with crayon rocks. I would never use such small, stubby crayons with melted crayon drawings because the fingers would be too close to the hot surface. Instead, we use long, unbroken crayons when working with heat.

A day or two after we finished the melted crayon art, we turned them into stained glass panels for our front door by painting vegetable oil on the back. The oil immediately makes the white paper much more transparent (you can see the design of the placemat through the paper in the photo above).

The paper was pretty oily, so we rubbed off the extra oil with a paper towel before putting them on the window.

Maia placed each melted crayon stained glass drawing into a window pane, thinking carefully about placement and moving them around a bit before she was satisfied with the final effect. The oil-covered paper clings to the window as is and doesn’t need anything else to make it stick.

Here’s our new stained glass front door, with melted crayon drawings by both Maia and me.

Have you tried melted crayon art yet? We put it off for the longest time because of the heat factor and because I thought you needed a warming tray to do it, but it is SO rewarding, I wish we had done it earlier.