DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Melted Crayon Stained Glass Shamrock Craft

Use this as a craft you can hang in your window or make it as a card for a special friend.

Materials:

• waxed paper,
• wax crayons (Crayola don't work as well as the cheap kind for this project, though they do still work)
• manual pencil sharpener (with a fairly large hole)
• iron, ironing board and scrap paper (white computer paper or brown paper bag)
• construction paper,
• scissors,
• glue stick.

Instructions:

• ADULT:  Plug in the iron and cover the ironing board with scrap paper.  Set the iron to medium (no steam).
• Tear a piece of waxed paper that's square (or a bit longer than it is wide) and fold it in half.  Then unfold.

• Take the paper off some crayons and 'sharpen' them in the pencil sharpener.  Let the shavings drop onto 1/2 the waxed paper.
• Feel free to use 3 or 4 different colors. When choosing your colors here are some suggestions:
  • one bright green
  • one grey or grey-green
  • one yellow or greenish yellow (yellow is one of the primary colors that make green)
  • one blue or greenish blue (blue is one of the primary colors that make green). Don't use too much of the blue since it's a dark color and can take over!
• When you have a nice pile of shavings refold the waxed paper.
• Fold about 1/2 inch around all the edges so none of the wax leaks out when you iron.
• Place the waxed paper containing the shavings down on the ironing board and cover with more scrap paper.
• Iron for about 10 seconds.  Peek and iron a bit more if necessary.  All the wax should melt.  The longer you iron, the more your colors will mix.
• Let sit about 30 seconds to cool.
• Take a piece of construction paper and fold in half.
• Crease well.
• Fold in half again, but this time, don't crease it very much (the less you crease it the better, but young children may need it creased quite well).
• Cut out a half shamrock shape.  You can do this freehand or draw it on for small children to cut out.
• Unfold the construction paper and you'll find a 'card' type shape with a heart through the middle of it.
• Put your waxed paper ("stained glass") into the middle and figure out where you're going to position it.  With a pen trace around a line for where you'll want to trim the waxed paper.  The pen won't make a pen mark, but it will leave a white line on the paper.
• Cut out the waxed paper so it is about the same size as your construction paper rectangle or just a little smaller.  Try not to fold it -- the wax will crack if you do.
• Open up the construction paper.
• Use a glue stick to trace around the shamrock shape on one side of the construction paper.
• Glue the waxed paper down inside your construction paper.
• Trace around the other side of the shamrock with glue (on the other side of the construction paper) and around the edges of the construction paper and fold down so the waxed paper is sandwiched and your project is firmly glued shut.