Puzzle Piece Crayons

As Autism Awareness month comes to an end, I am reminded that Autism is something we should be educating people about every day of the year! The more we know, the more we understand. The more we understand, the more we can help! Here is my final Autism Awareness craft for the month.

Materials:

-broken, unwrapped crayons

-puzzle piece ice cube tray (I found one at Ikea a few years back!)

-gallon Ziploc bag

-hammer

-oven

Instructions:

1. Place all broken and un-wrapped crayons in a gallon, Ziploc bag.

2. Using a hammer, break up crayons into small pieces.

3. Place broken crayons into puzzle piece, ice cube tray

4. Place ice cube tray on a cookie sheet and put both in the oven and bake 15 minutes at 250 ° until crayons have melted.

5. Remove cookie tray from oven and let cool. Once the crayons have hardened, remove carefully from the ice cube tray.

For more information on Autism Awareness, please visit this incredible website!

Melted Crayon Canvas

These creations might be the coolest things I have ever seen! If you have never seen them, simply Google "melted crayon canvas." You won't regret it!

Here is a pic of a melted crayon canvas made for my niece Camdyn by her aunt Heather.

My sister, @Kyra Tanner, decided on a shades of orange theme for her melted artwork in honor of my cousin Dustin, who is a leukemia survivor!!!

The options are limitless, but here is a link with a tutorial for one awesome example

Crayon Holder Roll Up

Colored pencil rollup, courtesy of The Modern Hive blogspot





The inside of the adorable colored pencil rollup



If I had all day to make these, I would TRULY make them all day long. There are lots of tutorials out there for making crayon (or pencil or marker or WHATEVER) rolls using fabric, but I like to skip extra steps as often as necessary, so I decided to use a placemat I bought at the Dollar Tree to avoid additional sewing and pressing. Keep in mind that the user will be seeing both sides of the placemat, so it is important to find a placemat that is patterned (or at least attractive-looking) on both sides. Placing the placemat vertically on a flat surface, fold the bottom edge to approximately 4-5 inches under the top edge(a little less than halfway). Pin the end of an 18” strand of ribbon in between both layers on each side of the placemat. Pin both layers of the placemat together along the edges and sew along the pinned edges, leaving one large pocket. Sew vertical lines about 1 inch apart (if you are making a pencil rollup; crayons will usually need lines 1 ½” apart and markers could be up to 2” apart, depending upon the width). A variation of this project could also leave enough room for a notebook or coloring book in the middle or pockets could vary in width to appropriately fit a variety of school tools (rulers, pens, pencils, note cards, markers, the list goes on and on). In case my instructions have confused you thoroughly, here is a tutorial (with pictures!) of this project to help you along your way!

http://sewing.craftgossip.com/tutorial-pencil-or-crayon-roll-from-a-placemat/2009/12/06/