How to Make Miniature Crayons for Your Doll House or Room Box

There are several methods one can use to make miniature crayons for their doll house or room box. I will cover three methods that I've come up with and another that I saw on a website. You can decide which you like best, or which suits your need or scale best.

The first style of crayons I will discuss making are fairly simple, but really realistic.

What You Will Need:

Glue
Plastic scrapbook crayon decorations or buttons
Scissors or nail clippers

How To Make Them:

Stop to a shop that sells a fairly wide variety of scrapbook accessories or buttons. I found mine at Michaels in a mixed bag with apples, abc's and scissors.
There's two ways you can make these. The first is to clip the loop off of the back of your crayon with scissors or nail clippers and just let the crayons lay flat as is on a table or desk in your scene.
If you want a more authentic look yet you can make a package for your crayons. Lay your crayons in your scene and sit back and admire them!

The other method is to take two crayons of the same color and clip off of the loops and to glue the crayons back to back. This will give you a round three dimensional crayon.

How To Make Them:

Cut the loops off of two crayons of the same color.
You will most likely need to trim the loops with a nail clipper and / or a nail file.
Sand any of the remaining loops off so that the back of the crayons are flat.
Once the backs of the crayons are completely flat, glue them back to back flat sides together.
Let the crayons sit and dry.
You can add some packaging to the crayons, if you'd like.
You are all done, now set them in your room box or doll house scene.

The second style of crayons are a bit more complex to make, but they are still classed as being an easy project, I believe. I will advise patience in making these as they are rather difficult to assemble and to work with.

What You Will Need To Make Them:

Scrapbook paper with a small (in scale) crayon design
Glue, tape or clear mounting squares
Scissors or craft knife
Rounded Twist Ties (I used the ones that are used to hold children's toys in the packaging)

How To Make Them:

Cut out as many crayons from the paper as you wish to make.
Take your twist tie and glue a crayon on one side wrapping it around the tie. Leave the tip of the crayon unglued to the twist tie.
Take another crayon the same color and glue or tape that to the other side, wrapping any extra around the twist tie.
Glue the tips of the crayons together.
Cut the twist tie crayons to size (cut them to the same size as the paper crayons are)
Add any packaging you might want to use.

There are two alternate crayon methods using the scrapbook papers:

Instead of using the twist ties and gluing the paper crayons to them you can just glue two paper crayons to each other's back.
Alternately, you may just use a flat one dimensional crayon cut out from the paper as your crayons.

The next type of crayon can be made from Play-Doh, Fimo, Sculpey or any similar modeling clay.

Roll your clay or Play-Doh and make a thin strip in your hands the size you'd like your crayon to be.
Neaten up the bottom end by cutting it with a knife so that it will be flat.
Roll the top end carefully to make a point for the crayon tip.
Cut the tip with a knife so that it, too is flat. Alternately you can cut it crooked to make it look like it has been used.
That's it! Now sit back and decide how to place them into your room box or doll house.

The last method is listed on this site. It says it is to make markers, but you could easily follow the tutorial and use it for crayons instead. The packaging method shown on this site can be used on whatever type of crayon you choose to make.

How To make packaging out of top loading sheet protectors or out of a piece of plastic or cellophane (or even Saran Wrap):

Lay the crayons you wish to package together flat on the cellophane, Saran Wrap, plastic or sheet protector.
Cut around the series of crayons and trim off a lot of the excess plastic. Leave one inch around the top and bottom of the crayons, and leave a half inch around them on either side.
Fold the sides of the plastic over the crayons. Fold the bottom up and either tape, glue or place a clear mounting square where the sides and bottom meet. You will want to fold this fairly tight to avoid wrinkles and folds in the 'packaging.'
Fold the top down over the crayons making sure it's tight and there are no wrinkles or folds. Tape where it meets the bottom piece of plastic.
All done! Sit back and place your crayons into your doll house or room box.

Hints, Tips and Suggestions:

* I'd suggest you trying the clay over the Play-Doh as I'm unsure how it would hold up in a hardened state for any length of time.

* If you'd like you can add some lines in the clay or Play-Doh crayons with a needle, pin or similar object.

* For added authenticity to the clay or paperclip crayons you can print out or write out a label to wrap around each crayon. Add a stripe on the top of the label and another on the bottom and write 'crayon' in the middle.

* You can set all of your crayons in a cup, desk organizer or desk drawer in your home.

* For a cute scene you could scribble or draw a picture on a piece of in scale art paper with a color similar to one of your crayons and leave the crayon laying on top of or near the picture. You could even let your child or children make the picture.

* You could print out or draw some pictures and make a small coloring book. Take the coloring book and either color a bit of a picture or lay the crayons on or near it. Perhaps you could set a child at a desk in front of the book and crayons, or have them lying on their belly to 'color'.

* To add a crayon box to your packaged or unpackaged crayons, visit this site and choose the scale that you are working in, or the scale that would fit your crayons. Print the box out and fold along the lines. Glue or tape together and place your crayons inside.

* Keep in mind your scales and your crayon types when making these. Some crayons are larger, taller and thicker (think chunky toddler crayons) while others are slimmer. This will give you a bit of leeway and still allow you to remain in scale. This is especially important when making the three dimensional button crayons as they can turn out quite thick when finished.

* There are kid's pencils that have alternating colored pencil leads inside them. If small enough, these could be great crayons. I have one here that I've had for years. It had a bunch of leads in the barrel of the pencil that were just the lead only, no plastic on them, nothing at all. These are generally the perfect size for miniature crayons just as they are.

* If you choose the cellophane packaging, you might find it easier to tape the crayons to the back of the cellophane to keep them from shifting as you fold the plastic around them.

Whatever type you like best, may you and your doll house or room box family experience many artistic creations with your new crayons.