Growing up, I convinced my mother that I needed a new box of crayons every school year, despite the fact that I had plenty of perfectly good crayons in the box from last year… and the year before that… and the year before that. If your house is anything like mine was, you have at least one tub of miscellaneous crayons. It’s usually a ridiculous amount and you wonder what in the world to do with that endless supply of crayons.

Well, here is a festive kid-friendly craft for using up some of those crayons.

This technique can be applied to any theme, season, holiday, or topic. It works for X-mas trees, Valentine hearts, shamrocks, pumpkins, whatever. Use this basic method to make limitless adorable crafts.

 

 

Supplies:

  • Paper (two pieces per turkey)
  • Scissors or crayon sharpener
  • Parchment paper
  • Iron
  • Glue
  • All of the crayons
1. Peel the paper covering off of the crayon. If it gets stuck, you can soak the crayon is water.

 

2. Gather crayon shavings using the following techniques. I used a combination of the two. Option 1: Carefully scrape the crayon using a pair of scissors, collecting the shavings as you go. Obviously not a good option for young children and a better technique for adults. 

 

Option 2: Use the crayon sharpener (or a pencil sharpener you are okay with dedicating to crayons) to shave the crayon and collect the bits. This is a good option if your child wants to help shave the crayons. 

 

3. Once you have enough shavings (I did a bunch while watching TV), you can start making your turkey. On one piece of paper, draw out the body of the turkey. (Please excuse my elementary turkey drawing. I am clearly no expert of poultry.)

 

4. Cut out the body.

 

5. On the second piece of paper, draw the tail. You can make a circle or add bumps in the outline for individual feathers.

 

6. Cut out the tail feathers.

 

7. Now for the messy part. I recommend putting down some newspaper to make for easy cleanup. Rip off a piece of parchment paper and put your tail feathers on top of it, setting up your crayon shavings close by.

 

8. Sprinkle pinches of crayon shavings on the tail (you can leave the middle blank since the turkey body will be covering it). Create whatever pattern/design/combination you like. Note that darker colors tend to overpower lighter ones, especially purples and reds.

 

9. Bring the parchment paper and tail to an iron-safe surface and place a second piece of parchment paper on top.

 

10. Press the iron to the parchment for a few seconds. It really does not take long to melt since the shavings are so small.

 

 

11. Peel off the top layer of paper and admire the results.

 

12. At this point, you can fill in any areas or add any more colors (especially lighter colors like yellow).

 

13. If you added more shavings, repeat steps 11-12.

 

When you are satisfied with your tail feathers, you are ready to glue them to the turkey body.

 

14. Put a little glue on the back of the turkey body and attach to the tail feathers.

 

15. Trim off any extra bits.

 

16. Marvel at your beautiful turkey.

 

 

This is a fun craft for children. I did it while babysitting and both of the kids were fascinated with watching me melt the crayons (from a safe distance). It does take some prep work if your kids are not old enough to shave the crayons themselves. With the crayon sharpener, kids can contribute, but it does take a while to get enough shavings for a project. However, it is a wonderful technique for using crayons in a different way and has gorgeous results.

 

 

 

 

Afterward, you can let your kids play and explore with the leftover shavings. It always leads to interesting results (another reason it’s a good idea to lay down newspaper first).