Crayola Lamp

Long weekends always leave me looking for something to do to occupy my time.  Alex and I decided a trip to Hobby Lobby and Lowes to get stuff for her new apartment was a good idea.  Of course, we got distracted from our real shopping purpose and bought a load of stuff for crafting.  Three hours of shopping later, we headed home to make lamps for our classrooms.  Although time consuming, this lamp is simple to make and is super cute for my classroom desk :)

Finished Product :)

Here's how to create this sweet lamp:

Step 1: Glue crayons to your lamp (or other surface...Alex has done this on a flat canvas before and it looks wonderful hanging in her room).  Make sure that you use at least 4 crayons in each shade otherwise the colors run together and turn brownish black.  I prefer to use a hot glue gun to glue the crayons on to ensure they stay.

Step 2: After gluing the crayons around the outside of the lamp, I put a layer of hot glue around the inside edge of the lamp.  I wanted to ensure the crayons don't fall off if the lamp gets knocked over or bumped by the kids.

Step 3: Use a blow dryer to melt the crayons.  Be careful because the wax will splatter!  We had a plastic sheet to cover the floor with for this part, but forgot to bring it.  Our friend Craig's bathtub was a good substitute.  We used the highest heat setting and aimed the heat toward the center of the crayon.  Place the blow dryer close to the crayons.  You can change the drip design depending on the angle you hold the lamp shade.  You can change the thickness of the drip design, as well, depending on how long you expose the crayons to the heat.  The crayon wax will dry quickly.

Step 4: Clean up.  Since the wax dries almost immediately, the bath tub was stained with wax splatter.  To clean up the mess, we reheated the splatter with the blow dryer & used paper towels to wipe it up.  After getting most of it off, we used scrubbing bubbles and hot water.  The tub was sparkling white when we finished.

The finished product :)

Alex was excited to show off our craft!