This craft is not only colourful and creative it can help have a positive impact on the environment by keeping unwanted crayons out of the landfill. You can also turn a reusable bag into a work of art that you will want to take everywhere.
Using Reusable bags is a great way to help save the planet from plastic bag pollution. We created a sea-life theme on our fabric bag, as a way of saying, “keep our oceans clean!”.
Hundreds of billions of plastic bags get discarded every year, ending up in the ocean and on land. It takes 500 years for a plastic bag to degrade, and it doesn't fully break down, instead it turns to micro-plastic that can further pollute the environment, hurt wildlife and become impossible to cleanup.
You can up-cycle your old crayon stubs for this craft! Use the ones that get too short to draw with and continue to make beautiful artwork out of them. We love zero waste crafting ideas, so we came up with this creative way to keep those unwanted crayons out of the landfill. Since crayons are made of wax and don’t biodegrade, they can become harmful to the environment if they reach the landfills. It is important to recycle your crayons. Creating this fun up-cycled art is a good way to reuse those unwanted crayons so you don’t have to throw them out.
Wax crayons are also waterproof, so you will be waterproofing part or all of your reusable bag!
This melted crayon fabric art is basically patches that can be put onto anything. We put them onto this hemp bag to decorate it, but anything you think of will work! If you are good at sewing, you can make your own bag, we used a hemp bag that we were gifted and put our melted crayon fabric art onto it.
Materials:
Crayons, preferably old small crayons to up-cycle
A grater
Scissors
Mod Podge or white non-toxic school glue
Baking sheet
Wax paper or tinfoil
Cotton Fabric - white
Since an oven is required with this craft, adult supervision and assistance is needed.
Cooking instruction:
Preheat oven to a low setting - 200°f
Bake Time: 4-8 mins (until the crayon has melted).
Steps:
1. Cut out the cotton fabric to fit inside your baking sheet and place it onto the baking sheet layered with wax paper under it.
2. Grate coloured crayons (whatever colour you want) directly onto the fabric. Make sure that you can’t see any of the fabric. Layer different colours, if desired. Grating may need to be done by an adult, depending on the child’s age.
If you want, you can create the shape you want prior to cooking, or just scatter it everywhere. Either way, you will be cutting the shapes out after it’s cooked.
3. Bake at 200°f for 4-8 mins (until the crayon has melted). This step requires adult supervision and adult help. Use caution when removing from the oven and don’t touch it until it’s been cooled. it only takes about 10 mins to cool off.
This is what it will look like. Take it out of the oven and allow it to cool.
5. Cut the shape that you want out! We went with a sea-life theme..
6. Glue your melted crayon fabric art onto a reusable bag. We glued ours onto a reusable hemp bag.
The wax crayons is waterproof, so you can seal your bags and make them waterproof. You can put the crayon directly onto a fabric bag as well and make colourful abstract art.
Play around with colours and shapes. You can draw out the image with marker after it cools and then cut it out, or just cut it out. Use a stencil if needed.
Hand wash your bag with cold water, spot clean it, or remove the crayon art by pulling it off, and reattach it afterwards. Hot water washing isn’t recommended.
You can create these melted crayon patches for any type of project. Attach it to a journal, a favourite jacket or a pillow, the creativity is up to you.
We hope that you have fun decorating your reusable fabric bags with this colourful up-cycling crayon craft! Feel free to tag us on Instagram @acorns.and.aprons, we would love to see your creations and may feature it as our story!
