Fun with Crayons

A while back, I had pinned this image on my pinterest board.

So last night, I tried it.  I found a white shadowbox frame that was 10" x 10", so I started by making a stencil that was approximately 8" x 8".  I had originally printed some letters out on the computer, but in the end, I just went with a really simple M shape.  Hmmm...was that a hint?

I had also purchased a piece of white scrapbook paper that I used for my background.  I traced the M onto the scrapbook paper and cut it to size.

I purchased two boxes of 24 crayons, but in the end I picked up a third, mostly because there are so many oranges and blues and I wanted my colors to be more varied.

Before I started gluing, I needed to figure out how I would break my crayons to size.  I finally decided on using a cutting board and a knife.  Maybe not the best use of my kitchen utensils, but it worked great for this project!

The last thing I did before starting was that I actually had my inspiration picture pulled up on my laptop so I could refer back to it.

Now that I had my art station set up, it was time to get started.  I loosely measured how big my crayon pieces should be, cut them to size, and then used rubber cement to attach them.  I used rubber cement because it was the first thing I found around the house that would work, but I'm sure there are lots of other adhesives that would work.  I would be nervous about hot glue, but maybe I'm the only messy one out there that gets glue stringies everywhere.  I'll show you the next parts of the process visually.

One thing I didn't do at first, and then only occasionally, was to erase my pencil marks.  In the places where I used a sharp crayon head, if you look closely, you can see the pencil marks.  Oh well.  I don't think that most people will see this from that close up.  I will also say the rubber cement takes awhile to dry, so I wouldn't move this right away.  Of course, I couldn't possibly wait for that to see what it would look like in the frame, so I did jimmy the frame on without lifting up the M.  Here's what that looks like.

Perfect!  Now I just can't wait to get it up on the wall.  I'm planning a little gallery wall, but so far I only have two pieces to hang so it will be a little sparse at first.  That's okay.  I love what I have so far, so I'm comfortable to just keep adding to it with items that I love as I can.
Altogether, this project was really affordable, and I highly recommend making one for yourself.  The frame I found at JoAnn for 40% off, so it was about $12.  The scrapbook paper was $.69, and the 3 boxes of crayons were around $1.30 each.  My grand total was under $17.  Woot woot.  If anyone else out there takes on this project, be sure to let me know how it turns out for you!