It’s time to deck the halls — the holidays are upon us.
From making our homes into whimsical wonderlands to adorning our trees with a touch of Christmas flare, ornaments bring to life the spirit of the season.
So, why not make your own and add your own special touches that will create memories that will last a lifetime?
It’s easy and relatively cheap — even here in West Hawaii. So long as you own a hair dryer already, this do-it-yourself holiday ornament craft project will set you back less than $1.50 a piece, including the cost of electricity and tax as well as not purchasing the needed items on sale. If you have crayons lying around the house — especially the broken ones — the cost per ornament is less.
These ornaments, which can be tailored to any holiday theme or color scheme, come to life by melting chunks of crayon, or even crayon shavings, inside of a glass ornament using a hair dryer. As the crayon melts, the ornament is turned or shaken, to create interesting and one-of-a-kind designs.
Be careful, though, the air coming out of the hairdryer is hot. So, keep your fingers above the airstream, simply holding and moving the glass orb in the hot air. And, be sure to put out a towel, sheet or newspaper to keep your home clean.
You can take the creativity even further with the assortment of crayons available at stores these days by adding some shine with metallic crayons, brightness with neon crayons or sparkle with glitter crayons. Use permanent, light fast and pigmented paint markers to add a personalized touch to the ornament such as inscribing the year and names or drawing colorful fish on an ocean-blue themed ornament.
Get everything together and start making your own ornaments for this 2013 holiday season now.
What you’ll need:
c Clear or iridescent glass ornaments. Various shapes and sizes can be found at your local craft store, including orbs, hearts and disks. Never use plastic or shatter-proof plastic ornaments — they could melt.
c Crayons — whether purchased new or collected from broken ones around the house. Purchase a small pack of glitter or metallic crayons to add a touch of shine to your creation.
c A knife to cut chunks and make shavings from the crayon.
c A hair dryer — any type will do.
c Ribbon to create a hanger for the ornament when it’s done. For this project, 3/8-inch organza ribbon in silver was used.
c An old towel, sheet or newspaper to reduce the chance of a mess. You’ll also want a towel or paper towel to polish off your ornaments when complete to remove any extra wax on the outside and fingerprints. Remember wax doesn’t wash out, so it needs to be a towel you don’t need.
How to make your ornament:
c Set up your workstation by laying out the towel to catch any errant crayon wax. Be sure to have a hard surface for the hairdryer to sit on when it’s being used.
c Remove the silver (or gold) tops from the ornament. Set them aside, but make sure they won’t get blown away by the hairdryer.
c Next, select some crayons. Be sure to choose colors that will work together when melted because certain colors blend to create a color you may not have wanted, like brown.
c Working carefully, use the knife or blade to cut chunks or shavings from the crayon. If you have a pencil or crayon sharpener this works well, too, but make sure you clean it out between ornaments, unless you want that color to show up in your next ornament. The chunks should be no thicker than about 1/8-inch. Any thicker and it will take a good deal of time to melt.
c Put the chunks or shavings of crayon inside the glass ball. You can start with one color and add other colors, or put them all in at once. Wait until you’ve melted the other colors to add black, because it can take over quickly.
c Next, turn on your hair dryer and adjust it to its high temperature — keep in mind that you don’t need the fan on high and it can be adjusted as you go.
c Carefully grasp the ornament by its top and lower the area containing the crayon chunks and shavings into the hot airstream from the dryer. You can get the ornament close to the hair dryer, but it shouldn’t touch it. If the air is too hot, try using a pair of gloves or take a break.
c Once the chunks and/or shavings of crayon start to melt — this takes a couple of minutes — begin twisting and moving the ornament to spread the wax around. How you move the ornament determines the resulting design. You can even shake it to get a neat look — but be careful you don’t shake the wax right out of the ornament and make a mess.
c Keep working until you’ve coated the entire inside of the ornament to ensure no bare spots remain. If you want a lighter look, leave a few spots free of wax and light will show through. It’s up to you!
c For a spattered and less melted look, use a crayon or pencil sharpener to create shavings. Next, put the shavings inside the glass ornament. Lower the ornament into the hot air stream, and rather than waiting for the crayon shavings to melt, turn the ornament in the hot air and shake the shavings around until they stick to the glass. You can stop there for a speckled look, or melt the shavings a little more for a granite-like look.
c Set the ornament aside to cool.
c Once cool, polish the ornament with a towel or paper towel. This will remove any crayon wax from the outside and make your special ornament extra shiny and pretty. You may want to warm the ornament slightly using the hair dryer to make this easier if you have a lot of wax to remove.
c Replace the ornament’s top. Cut a length of ribbon to about 8 inches and loop it through the ornament’s top. With the loose ends tie a nice bow, making sure to leave space between the ornament and bow so it can be hung on the tree or wherever else you want.
Voila! Hang your ornament and enjoy the holidays — or make it a special, personalized gift for family and friends.