Thursday, January 15, 2009

A new Technique/Tutorial for you: Faux Stained Glass Melted Crayon Background

I love to play with techniques, especially when I can use the supplies on hand and come up with a interesting way to create backgrounds. So, I have been playing around with a technique that I saw on SCS, melted crayons. I did not want to drag out my iron and I wanted to see what would happen if I used waxed paper instead of foil.

What I like is the result with this technique, pictures don't come close to what you will see in person. And, you can also use both the card stock and the wax paper for your back grounds!

After playing around quite a bit, this is the result:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here it is again with more of the entire stamped image:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here is a different image using the same colors for the background:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here is a butterfly with the brighter colors:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


The image below shows you a different background for the butterfly. It is stamped on the transparency overlapped onto the background, glued down but not yet cut out.

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here it is cut out, sorry about the shadow (took the picture outside):

From Outdoor images of Faux Stained glass


This next picture shows what you can do with the wax paper part of the tutorial, I stamped on the side that did not have any crayon, heat embossed with clear powder, cut the wax paper into strips and used it as a background:

From Outdoor images of Faux Stained glass


Ok, so here is the tutorial. At some point in the future I will also try to do a video for you. Let me know what you think.

Faux Stained Glass Melted Crayon Tutorial

Supplies you will need:

Rubber Stamp that has a large amount of "open area"
Staz on ink (I used black for the contrast)
Clear embossing powder
Transparency (the heat resistant type is best, but I used non heat resistant)
Crayons: any and all types. I used metallic and regular crayons
Pencil sharpener or craft knife
Mica powder: I used Pearl Ex because I didn't have to worry about binding
Paint brush or tooth pick
Heat embossing gun
Wax paper
Card stock: I used white card stock, do not know the brand name
Adhesive: I used a clear adhesive (which is very good) Beacon's 3 in 1 Advanced Craft Glue, as I have not tried this technique with any other adhesive I can't say how it would turn out using something else. Any crystal clear adhesive or dimensional should work fine.
Micro Glaze: Optional, I used it on one background so I could take a better picture.

Step one: Gather your supplies and figure out what colors you want to use for your background. I have two examples for you. One using metallic and regular greens, pinks, gold (for the flower) and one that used regular and metallic crayons in brighter colors: yellow, orange, red, blue, green with a very light colored gold pearl ex, for the butterfly. Decide where you want your colors. I did two butterflies, one where the yellow and oranges went from the middle out, and the other one where I decided that I wanted to turn the background so that the blues to be at the top and the yellow/orange/red to be more toward the bottom.

Cut a large enough piece of wax paper to cover both sides of your cardstock. Place the card stock on top of the wax paper, leaving enough wax paper to fold over the top of the card stock. NOTE: to protect your work area make sure you have either foil or additional paper under the wax paper as some of the wax will melt through all the layers.

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Next, using your pencil sharpener, start to shave your crayons. Make sure to remove enough of the crayon wrapper to only be shaving the crayon. I used the larger hole of my sharpener as the smaller one did not seem to work well. NOTE: You will find that different crayons "shave" in different ways. The metallic and some softer crayons will give you bigger shavings, the harder the crayon the smaller the shavings.

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


As you can see from the above picture I decided to have lots of the green in my background so I held the sharpener a bit higher over the paper and as I shaved the crayon the crayon shavings distributed all over the paper.

Now, continue this process adding what ever colors you would like to use. In the image below I have used some regular and some metallic crayons, having added some green mettalic, regular pink and gold metallic to the first image. Even a little bit of the metallic crayons will leave a nice shimmer, experiment with how much or little you want to use of the metallics.

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


NOTE: Don't worry if you don't completely cover the card stock. As you will see, the crayon melts and will fill in some gaps, and you can also shave more crayon and repeat the process if you want to add more color.

Now you are going to add your pearl ex (or other mic powder). I did it two ways, and truthfully liked one better then the other. I used a toothpick to pick up a little bit of the powder, then sprinkled it on the paper:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


And I also dipped my brush into the mica powder and then tapped the brush over the shaved crayon:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


I preferred to use the brush because I had more control over where the powder went, you will need to experiment to see which method you use.

When applying the mica powder I tried to make sure it landed on the paper so that the crayon would melt with it and leave a shimmer.

Step Two:

Now you are going to fold the wax paper over the top of the card stock and use your heat gun to melt the crayon. NOTE: I played with this a whole lot, and there are a number of ways you can play with this part. As the crayon melts you can push it around with the heat gun, let the crayon get hot enough to sort of bubble, then use the force of the heat gun to blend the colors. OR as you are heating the crayon and it starts to melt you can use a brayer to move the color around. OR if you are VERY careful, as the wax paper will be hot, you can move the color around by pressing down on the melted crayon (I did this by using a piece of card stock to protect my fingers because it was too hot to do directly with my fingers.)

As you heat and melt the crayon you will see the crayon bubble up in some places which is fine, just play with the process until you learn how to work with the crayons while they are melting.

Here is what the process looks like as it melts:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here is what the process looks like after you heat and before you peel back the wax paper (it looks messier then it really is):

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here is what it looks like when you peel back the wax paper:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


After everything is melted, peel back the wax paper and see if you want more color or mica powder added. In the picture below I added some more shavings after the first melt:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here is the background after being melted for a second time:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here I added some Micro Glaze over the crayon to bring out the colors for the camera:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Oh, and remember that wax paper? Don't throw it away! You can use it for a background as well!

Here is a picture of the wax paper on top of some colored card stock to give you an idea of how it could be used:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Step Three:

This was the part that gave me the most trouble as I wasn't sure how stamping directly on the background would turn out. So I experimented by stamping directly on the background, the wax paper and the transparency.

They all look good, just give you different results.

Here is a comparison:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


When you stamp directly on the background the image is not as clear and crisp, additionally if you emboss the image you will find that the image starts to blur as the heat gun also starts to melt the crayon underneath.

I really preferred the results with the transparency, the colors came alive.

To stamp on the transparency: Make sure to go over the transparency with a anti static bag. CAREFULLY stamp your image (the transparency is slick and your image will move around if you are not careful), immediately cover with clear embossing powder. If you are using a transparency that is not heat resistant you will need to heat it carefully. I give the image a bit of heat, pull back, then add some more heat, and I continue doing that until the image is embossed. Just take your time, and you will be fine.

Now you can play with your image and the background, decide exactly what part of the background you want to use. When you know where you want your image to go, turn the transparency over and add your crystal clear adhesive to the ENTIRE image (you want to make sure you coat it well), lay down the image and press to make sure it adheres. I also used my brayer at this point to make sure the glue covered the entire image.

When the glue is done, cut out your image and hold it up to the light, you will be amazed at the colors you see!

Here are some more pictures of the process, this time showing how I did the butterfly background. The first picture shows the colors I used.

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


The following picture shows adding the mica powder:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here is an image as the crayon is melting:

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


And this is what it looked like when I was finished.

From Crayon Stained Glass Double Background Technique


Here is a card I made with the green/gold flower (haven't yet made cards with the butterflies):

From Outdoor images of Faux Stained glass


Hope you like this tutorial, sorry it is long, but I wanted to make it as clear as possible for you.

Have a fabulous day!

25 comments:

Papercraft Cafe said...

Wow! What a fabulous technique...I'm tempted to run out and buy some crayons, but I think I'll wait till tomorrow!!!! Thanks so much for an awesome tutorial. I love your blog!!!!!

Marie

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing this! looks absolutely fantastic - and I want to try it immediately :o) -Nancy

Jheffner said...

please let me know how your backgrounds come out : ) you will love it once you try it!

Anonymous said...

WOW! Those images are just beautiful and you are an excellent tutorialist! Thanks for sharing this technique in an easy to understand way. Can't wait to try it.

Anonymous said...

This looks so cool and I have TONS of crayons to try this with thanks to my son loving art so much. Thank you for sharing this tutorial and having tons of pictures to go along with it. :)

Anonymous said...

This is great.
Thank you

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the detailed tutorial. I need visuals to understans a technique. I will have go out and buy some crayons, and I didn't know that they made metalic colors. What fun!
Charlene

Teresa said...

GORGEOUS- thanks!

InkyAndScrappy said...

That is awesome! I remember doing something similar in grade school thanks for the brain jogger!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the great tutorial and the step by step pictures. I love the flower stamp you used. Do you happen to know what company it is from?

Anonymous said...

Wow!!! I was on SCS looking for some ideas for a butterfly card and came across yours. It's beautiful, I can hardly wait to get home from work to try it.

SherylH said...

Super tutorial -- thanks for the work in posting this. I have a stash of metallic and pearlescent crayons bought years ago and had forgotten why -- now have all the instructions to give this technique a try.

Deb_T said...

I love this technique so much more the just the melted crayon technique and your tutorials are so AWESOME. Thanks for all the wonderful pictures and details. I'll be trying it out this week. One thing I didn't get was the use of clear embossing powder. It looks to me as if you used black since the stamp outlines are all in what appears to be black ink or embossing powder.I am missing something.Why and where is clear powder used and how do you get the black outline?

Jheffner said...

Hi all,

The flower stamp is from Michael Strong, you can see his stamps, including the flower one, at this link:

http://www.strongstamps.com/catalog-rubber-stamps-supplies/index.htm

And I stamped black ink on the transparency and then poured clear embossing powder over the black ink. You could also try using the black powder, I just happen to be very messy with the powder and the clear gives me some "wiggle room" if I don't get every last speck off : )

Anonymous said...

Stunning results. Thanks for sharing.

Sue McRae said...

Love this technique! Thanks for sharing it and giving such great instructions!

Dawn B. said...

Beautiful tutorial. I love the way this looks. Thanks so much for sharing all of the steps and detail..

kellyjean said...

Just AWESOME! Found your from Lynn and the Try a New Technique Challenge at SCS. THanks for all of the fab details!

Shelly Schmidt said...

I love to try new techniques- and cannot wait to give this a go! I hope to post my results in the Try a new technique forum at SCS. Thanks!

Rosella said...

What a fantastic technique. LOVE the fact that you give such a detailed tutorial. I will definitely have to play with it. It's just brilliant!! Thank you!!!

KAT said...

This technique is FABULOUS! Now I have something to try with my non white crayons (needed those for crayon resist)... Love the way it turned out and using the wax paper to hold it all there is great!!! Thanks for sharing and the great tutorial!

Cherie said...

Totally awesome technique! I think my granddaughter is going to be missing some crayons! :)

Unknown said...

I googled stained glass melted crayons for a craft for my kids at school for an county art contest, and came across yours, I absolutely LOVE what you have done & think we will have a GREAT chance! :) However I'm trying to as easy as possible.. I'm a little confused about the embossing technique, I mean I get what you're saying however I do not have that heat gun mentioned, I was just going to use a dish towel, place over the wax paper, and iron over to melt the shavings. Now to emboss do I need to have an embossing heat gun? (might be a realllyy dumb question but i have no clue about embossing.

Jheffner said...

Hi Brittany, if you stamp directly onto the melted crayon you do not need to heat emboss...the heat embossing is if you stamp on a transparency and lay that over your crayon background.

You can also cover your melted crayon with some Modgepodge and then stamp directly onto of the modgepode.

Please email me if you have any other questions: Jacquie at afterhoursstamper.com

Rena Sawatski said...

I came across your tutorial by accident and have just finished using it for an A-Z swap. This is so much easier and tidier than using an iron. Although I am thinking of crumpling up the wax paper with the excess wax and ironing it on a piece of cardstock to see what kind of effect I might get.

Thank you so much for sharing your technique.

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