Mock Stained Glass using Crayon Shavings

We started out with broken paperless crayons and tried to shave them manually in a sharper. It was taking to long for my impatient kids, so my daughter though she would help the process out by using the electric sharpener. What a mess that was, I had pencil shavings mixed in my crayon shavings and my sharpener got suck on the soft crayons. My next idea was to put the crayons in a plastic bag and pound it gently with a rubber mallet, only I couldn't find it, so I got out the hammer and a pile of rags so the kids wouldn't break my counter top. I only had to scream 'BE GENTLE' a few times, they were pretty good about it.  

I set out all the crayon bits on paper plates and put a piece of wax paper in front of each kid and told them to decorate the paper with the shavings. Why do kids always have to wipe their gritty hands full of crushed crayon on their clothes. I mean REALLY? This is when I realized this should have been an outside project. There were bits of crayon on my kitchen floor, my counter, their clothes, my clothes. UGH!!! What a mess!! 

Before ironing you have to make a crayon wax paper sandwich with 2 pieces of rag. In other words, have your project layered this way rag wax paper crayon bits wax paper rag


I set my iron on cotton and ironed the top of the rag. Good thing I had the rags on there because the crayon squirted out the side of the wax paper even thought the crayon was an inch from the edge.

I am not impressed by this process. It was a huge mess and the product turned out to resemble a muddy looking Rorschach Test. I didn't like the bubbles that got stuck in with the crayon and it didn't look like stained glass at all. I would not recommend this craft at all because of the high mess to outcome ratio.

GRADE: F
Skill Level: Easy 
Difficulty Level: Low to Moderate (for kids)
Frustration Level: High (for mom)

Cost:  <$ (almost free)