Watercolor crayons are a great medium for kids to play with and they are very versatile.  When I was going through our art supplies I came across a set of secondhand watercolors that I was given while I was in art school.  Needless to say they are very dried out and don’t work like the newer variety.  I love this simple Watercolor Crayon Shavings project.
So we decided to try a little experiment since they no longer worked how they were designed to and I LOVE the results. Â We dampened a piece of water color paper with a spray bottle and simply sharpened the water colors directly onto the wet surface. Â You will need a sharpener with a large hole to fit the crayon.
Once the kids were happy with how the shavings looked we gave the paper another quick spray.  Pretty, but not spectacular.  I think that was because our crayons were dried out.  Not giving up we sandwiched the colors with another sheet of watercolor paper, sandwiched again with newspaper top and bottom and gave it a quick iron.  Similar to how you would iron regular wax crayons to create stain glass.  The results were two beautiful speckled, colorful sheets.
I thought this would be a great project to try with our preschool co-op.  Some of the kiddos are a bit younger and were struggling with using the sharpener.  So I gave them containers of the different watercolor shavings and they sprinkled it onto their paper.  The older kids sharpened their own directly onto the paper.  Since I did not bring watercolor paper, we tried it with construction paper and thick card stock.  The results were still OK but not what I was hoping for.  The paper needs to be wet and heated for the colors to come alive and regular paper is not designed for that.  We tried sandwiching the paper with wax paper and it worked better, but the colors peeled off with the wax paper.  All that said, if you try this just stick with watercolor paper and you will be much happier with the results.
I will be linking to these parties
Beautiful! You have such Great ideas!
Tammy your pictures from today are beautiful. I love all of the projects you have to share, I couldn’t stop reading. I like that Ruby could do many of these. Thanks for being willing to share your creativity.
Thanks for your sweet comments. I would love to see what you and Ruby create!
Brilliant post, I will be checking back again frequent to watch out for improvements.
I featured you this week, come check it out!
Michelle
http://www.delicateconstruction.blogspot.com
You post informative posts Just bookmarked !!!
This is great! I’ve curiously thrown out shavings from my watercolor crayons, thinking there “must” be something to do with them. These abstract pages are gorgeous. Wow!
I absolutely LOOOOVE this project! It turned out so well and you’ve inspired me to make one of my own! I also wanted to tell you that I featured you over at my blog here. Please feel free to grab a featured button if you want!
-Mel the Crafty Scientist
Wow! What fun and such gorgeous results. Thanks so much for sharing.
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I’m wondering what would happen if you took the ones using wax paper & made the wax paper portion into a suncatcher of sorts. Perhaps a cute, lightweight frame to feature this lovely work of art dazzling in the sun would be a sweet idea <3
I appreciate you sharing this article post. Fantastic.
I am so grateful for your blog.Much thanks again. Cool.
Really enjoyed this article.Much thanks again. Fantastic.
I cannot thank you enough for the blog post.Thanks Again. Cool.
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Oh this is the one that got me! I just love it. I’m going to try it on some canvas and see how it works out – I’ll be sure to let you know! TFS this great idea!
Helen — Firenze Cards
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This seems really amazing. I am new to DIY though and am a little confused by what you mean with the smushing and ironing. Could you please email me to explain: isabella.raphael21@gmail.com. Thanks!
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These are so pretty! I have a lot of different art materials and I have watercolour pencil crayons, but I haven’t seen these before. I’ll be keeping my eye out for them!
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