We enjoyed making heart sun catchers for Valentine’s Day so much, making a summer star sun catchers for 4th of July was a must. In addition to being pretty hanging in the window, I love that this craft is made with materials you can find around your house. Great for a last-minute project on a rainy day.
- Old Crayons
- Wax Paper
- Parchment
- Manual Sharpener or Knife
- Iron
- Star stencil or cookie cutter
- Baker’s Twine
After kids remove any paper from the crayons, they can sharpen crayons with a manual sharpener. For crayons that are too broken to sharpen, have an adult use a knife to shave/chop the crayons into tiny bits.
For each crayon you shave, place the shavings on a piece of wax paper – approx 12 x 12 inches. Fold the wax paper in half and then double fold the edges to create an envelope that will contain the shavings. This is very important. Make sure you double fold over your edges or wax will run out when you iron.
Tip – You only need one crayon (or the bits of about one crayon) per envelope otherwise it gets too thick.
Using a low setting, place your wax paper envelope between a large piece of folded parchment. Wax will ooze out — do not skip the parchment paper. (Sometimes I use a rag as a drop cloth, but it gets messy — very messy. The parchment works better because it contains the melted crayon.)
When the melted crayon is more or less evenly distributed, set it aside to cool (it just takes a couple of minutes).
Once cool, kids can use a pencil to trace large stars on the wax paper envelopes. I used a cookie cutter, but any stencil will do. The wax paper is so thin, it is easy enough for kids to cut through with safety scissors.
Punch a hole in your stars and hang in the window. The whole thing comes together in about 20 minutes.
If you would like to learn more about me and watch me make these stars, I made this craft while video taping this video profile.
Barb @ A Life in Balance says
We have tons of old crayons thanks to 5 kids. I’m saving this for a rainy day craft session.
Tammy @ creativekkids says
What a a great idea! I will definitely have to try this next year or do princess stars or something. Thanks for linking up at the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Party. I have pinned it to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Board. I’ll feature it Monday on our next party.
Sally says
How do you keep the crayon from melting in the window?
jen says
That’s a good question, but they just don’t seem to melt. The ones we made hung in a window with direct sunlight for more than a year. They still looked good when we finally took them down. And we live in Florida. I guess the AC keeps them cool enough. Have fun making them.