Coloring time!

I've been having a whole lot of fun with these--Crayola Fabric Crayons. My box doesn't look like this--it's pretty old. I unearthed it last weekend while cleaning. They're simple to use--draw a picture on plain paper using the crayons, iron it onto fabric. My problem is/was that the fabric needed to be polyester. I know, ugh! So my crayons were never used beyond a test last year for our putting designs onto fabric class. I learned then that the finished fabric is nice--not stiff or waxy. Just polyester.

Then I realized I had bought a large remnant of Jo-Ann's Felt. Polyester felt. It worked brilliantly with the crayons. This is my original drawing on the left (after being used), random rows just to test how they work and how true the colors are. On the right is the drawing ironed onto the felt. Pretty cool, huh?

The colors are somewhat true.  The red is quite pink, the terracotta more orange than brown, the purple prints more lilac, and the black more brown than black. But yellow, blue, green and orange are pretty true.  And now I know.

For this sample I printed the design a second time. This time onto polyester chiffon layered over felt. The design printed through the chiffon onto the felt. Both were much fainter than the original but still visible. I turned the felt top to bottom and then stitched the chiffon over it. Just to play. You can see a bit of the shadowy under design here. And, no, I have no idea what I plan to do with either of them.

So, I decided to try ornaments. And alphabet tags for gifts. Here are my designs after printing. (I did them on graph paper to try to get squarish squares.

Left to right: second printing of ornaments, first printing of ornaments and letters. Do you see the problem?  I forgot to reverse the letters. Some were okay (H), some I could flip upside down (K). I redid the rest (S). 

The designs from the second printing are really faint but do provide some color. I've embroidered over a couple and used others as ornament backs.  The first printing is much clearer. I've tried minimal stitching or a few beads with them and it looks festive. I've been making them into small ornaments, maybe 2-1/2" square.  I'm using the letters as they are, tied to packages with ribbons.  

I think this would be a great project to do with kids, as long as the ironing was done by an adult or supervised. Sheets of felt are inexpensive and easy to finish.