• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Platein28
  • About
  • Recipes
  • Crafts
  • Screen Time
  • Blog
  • Navigation Menu: Social Icons

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • About
  • Recipes
  • Crafts
  • Screen Time
  • Blog
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube
  • ×

    Home » Fall Crafts

    Fun with Melting Crayons on Pumpkins

    Published: Oct 24, 2022 by Julie Park · This post may contain affiliate links

    Pin
    Share
    Tweet
    Jump to Activity Print Activity

    This pumpkin craft was seriously so fun that we did it multiple times! Not only is melting crayons on pumpkins way easier than I thought it would be; you can also be endlessly creative. There are tons of color and design options. And watching the colors melt down the pumpkin is oddly soooo satisfying. This is definitely one craft where the process is the best part.

    three pumpkins with melted crayon art and googly eye

    We've done crayon molds before, but never melting crayons on top of pumpkins. It was so fun that we did it once as a family, again with the kids' friends over, and I even did this craft a third time without the kids. Our house is now an explosion of colorful mini pumpkins!

    three mini pumpkins with melted rainbow crayons
    Jump to:
    • 🌈 Why This Craft is So Fun!
    • ✂ Supplies
    • 📝 Instructions
    • 🖍 Important Tips
    • đŸ€” Other Ideas for Melting Crayons on Pumpkins
    • 🍁 More Fall Crafts You Might Like
    • 🎃 Melting Crayons on Pumpkins Craft

    🌈 Why This Craft is So Fun!

    Can I even list all the reasons this is the BEST craft?! I'll try to narrow it to five, ha ha:

    1. Colorful & Creative! Any colors you want! And you can just melt the crayons OR draw a face on the pumpkin OR glue on pom-poms, glitter, whatever.
    2. Kinda science-y! It's super cool to watch colored wax melt and drip down when you apply heat.
    3. Easy! It looks like it might be complicated, but seriously all you do is glue crayon bits onto a pumpkin and heat them with a blow dryer.
    4. No-carve! I definitely prefer this to pumpkin carving. No pumpkin junk everywhere, no rotting. Basically, more colorful - less gross. lol.
    5. Halloween decoration! In the end, you'll have some awesome colorful pumpkins to decorate your house/porch for Halloween. If you use a fake pumpkin, you can display it year after year.
    kids gluing crayons to pumpkins at kitchen table

    ✂ Supplies

    materials for melted crayon pumpkin craft
    Not pictured: small towel

    Essential Supplies:

    • Crayons - use Crayola if you can...dollar store crayons take FOREVER to melt!
    • Bowl - for soaking your crayons in water.
    • Towel - for general use and drying off the crayons.
    • Paper bag is to cover your work surface. Trust, this is messy! I cut mine open to double the surface area. Newspaper or garbage bags will also work.
    • Pumpkins can be any size and any amount, real or fake.
    • Hot glue gun + glue sticks
    • Hair dryer

    Optional Supplies:

    • Small bowl - just helpful for consolidating the crayon wrappers as you peel.
    • Permanent markers - for drawing faces or designs on the pumpkins.
    • Misc crafty decorations - i.e. pom-poms, googly eyes, glitter.

    📝 Instructions

    Safety note: for toddlers especially, some of these steps may require adult supervision and/or assistance. The tip of the glue gun is very hot. And while the glue dries pretty quickly, it's very hot right when it comes out of the gun.

    Step 1: Prep the crayons (4 mins)

    Soak, peel, break and dry the crayons. Easy peasy.

    filling a bowl of crayons with water in sink
    kid hands peeling wrappers off crayons
    a bunch of colorful crayon pieces on a towel

    Step 2: Glue on the crayons (4 mins)

    Use your glue gun to attach crayons around the pumpkin stem, one-by-one.

    boy gluing a crayon to pumpkin
    boy adding more crayons to pumpkin
    pumpkin with crayons glued to top

    Step 3: Melt the crayons (4 mins)

    Use your hair dryer to melt the crayons. Watch out for hot wax splatter!

    TIP: hold you hair dryer at least a couple inches above the pumpkin. The closer it is, the more splatter there will be. You can hold the dryer at different angles so the wax drips in the ways you like.

    heating crayons on a pumpkin with a blow dryer
    crayons heating and dripping on pumpkin
    final pumpkin with melted crayon

    🖍 Important Tips

    I'm gonna be bossy for a sec and give you some DOs and DO NOTs. Lol! No really, these are just my suggestions from having done this crayon craft a bunch of times.

    ✅ DO use Crayola crayons! For the first go-around, we used dollar store crayons and, no joke, we were going on 25 minutes of blow drying and the crayons still weren't fully melted! With Crayola, the crayons melt in like 2 œ minutes. Yes, we actually timed it! Use up whatever bits of crayon you have around the house too! So, DO NOT use dollar store crayons.

    ✅ DO use a hot glue gun, NOT regular craft glue. Hot glue both heats up and dries really fast. You can use craft glue, but you have to wait like 10-15 minutes for it to dry before you can start melting the crayons. Also, dried glue peels off really easily. So if you make a mistake (e.g. the crayon wasn't in the right position), you can peel it off and start over.

    ✅ DO soak your crayons for 2 minutes in warm/hot water. Soaking the crayons, as we discovered when doing our Crayon Mold Craft, makes crayon wrappers just slide right off. And since crayons are more pliable when warm, you can easily break apart the crayons with your hands. DO NOT use (exacto) knives/scissors to peel and cut your crayons because soaking is so much easier (and safer)!

    little pumpkin with lots of red crayon wax splatter

    ✅ DO prepare for the splatter! And DO NOT think this isn't messy. It's messy!!! Cover your work area with paper bags, boxes, newspaper, whatever. Or do this outside. The crayons splatter as they melt, and it can stretch pretty darn far. I even found crayon splatter on my dog! When we were done, I used a Mr Clean eraser and dish soap to get the hardened wax off our kitchen table. It worked great, but took a long time.

    ✅ DO: have fun and be creative! You can use any pumpkin you want: mini/big, fake/real, white/orange, etc. White is popular because the colors really pop on white, but I love orange! Experiment and don't expect perfection. The end result may not be Pinterest-pretty, but it's so fun and your kids will love watching colors blend and make unexpected designs.

    eight colorful pumpkins sitting on staggered shelf

    đŸ€” Other Ideas for Melting Crayons on Pumpkins

    I keep saying this cause it's true: there are endless ways to melt crayons on pumpkins. Here are some other creative approaches:

    • Biggest one - use faux pumpkins so you can reuse them every year!
    • Set your pumpkin upside down on top of an open jar when you melt the crayons so that when you flip the pumpkin over, it looks like the color is dripping upwards.
    • Enhance the color by melting the crayons on the pumpkin, waiting until dry, and then melting more crayons on top.
    • Use neon or glow in the dark crayons! Growing a Jeweled Rose has an awesome glow-in-the-dark crayon pumpkin craft (using black lights) that I want to try!
    • Make a candy corn colored pumpkin, or black and white striped.
    • This isn't for pumpkins, but melting crayons into molds is so fun too.
    four kids holding the colorful mini pumpkins they made
    three mini pumpkins with colors and faces

    🍁 More Fall Crafts You Might Like

    • Three DIY Napkin Rings
      The Most Adorable DIY Napkin Rings
    • squash decorated as a turkey with drawn-on eyes and fall colored felt tail, beak and feet
      Felt Turkey Craft with Squash
    • skeleton veggies with dip
      Skeleton Veggie Tray
    • three eggplant witches
      DIY Witch Decor with Eggplant

    Follow Platein28 on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook and Sign up for our newsletter for all the latest recipes and crafts!

    three colorful pumpkins
    Print Instructions Pin Activity Email Activity Share on Facebook

    🎃 Melting Crayons on Pumpkins Craft

    Melting crayons on pumpkins is so colorful and so much fun! It's a great no-carve Halloween craft that adults enjoy just as much as kids!
    Author: Marcie & Julie
    Total Time12 mins
    Total: 1 colorful pumpkin
    https://platein28.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Melting-Crayons-on-Pumpkins.mp4

    Supplies

    • crayons
    • medium bowl
    • small bowl optional
    • towel
    • paper bag or newspaper
    • small pumpkin(s)
    • glue gun + glue sticks
    • hair dryer
    • permanent marker(s) optional
    • crafty decorations, i.e. pom-poms, googly eyes, glitter optional

    Instructions

    • Prep crayons: Pick your crayons and put them in a bowl of warm/hot water. Let soak for 2 minutes. Then one-by-one remove crayons from bowl, peel off the wrapper, break into smaller pieces, and place on towel to dry. [optional: use a small bowl to collect all the crayon wrappers]
    • Glue crayons: Use the glue gun to put a small strip of glue at the top of the pumpkin, stretching away from the stem. Then press a crayon piece onto the hot glue. Repeat around the stem until you've glued a full circle of crayon pieces.
    • Melt crayons: Make sure pumpkin is sitting on a covered surface, like newspaper or a cut-open paper bag [the crayon will splatter!] Hold hair dryer a couple inches above center of pumpkin and turn on heat. You'll start to see the crayon bits melting down the sides of the pumpkin. Keep the blow drier steadily blowing until the crayons have melted enough to your liking.
    Prevent your screen from going dark

    Notes

    🖍 Before you start anything, plug in your glue gun so it can start heating. By the way, a hot glue gun heats up and dries really fast, so it's preferable to craft glue, which takes a while to dry.
    🖍 Use Crayola crayons. They melt the best. And take this opportunity to use up any random bits of crayons you have lying around the house.
    🖍 Soak your crayons for 2 minutes in warm/hot water. Soaking makes the crayon wrappers just slide right off, and when warm, the crayons are easier to break apart with your hands.
    🖍 If you make a mistake when gluing on the crayons (e.g. the crayon wasn't in the right position), no worries. The dried glue peels off really easily. You can start over.
    🖍 Be ready for the mess. The crayons splatter a lot as they melt! Cover your work area with paper bags, boxes, newspaper, whatever. Or do this outside. Cleaning tip: when you're done, a Mr Clean eraser and dish soap work well to get the wax off your table or floor (but it does take patience).
    🖍 Hold you hair dryer at least a couple inches above the pumpkin. The closer it is, the more splatter there will be. You can hold the dryer at different angles so the wax drips in different directions too.
    Tried this Craft? Pin it Today!Mention @Platein28 or tag #platein28!

    Want more 28-minute recipes and crafts? Sign up and get recipes straight to your inbox!

    You May Also Like

    • Two rice ghosts
      Ghost Puppets with Rice
    • the word family spelled with painted pasta
      Gratitude Words Craft
    • Turkey Fruit Plate
      Fruit Turkey Platter
    • tree drawn on paper with dyed pasta shells as leaves
      Falling Leaves Tree Craft

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    Welcome!

    Julie & Marcie in kitchen

    We are two sisters with young kids who want to help simplify mealtime for busy families! Platein28 is our family’s unofficial guide to wading through mealtime chaos. Here you will find quality recipes that take 28 minutes or less, with activities to occupy your kids so you can actually cook.

    More about us →

    Spring Recipes

    • collage of four Italian sausage recipes
      35 Easy Italian Sausage Recipes for Dinner
    • lemon garlic pasta with lemons in bowl
      Lemony Garlic Pasta (One Pot!)
    • hand holding fork and bowl of pasta with roasted veggies and pesto sauce
      Delicious, Simple Recipe for Pesto Pasta
    • collage of sliders for kids
      The 10 Best Sliders for Kids (Quick and Simple!)
    • hot dogs in crescent rolls on plate
      Hot Dogs in Crescent Rolls
    • creamy vegetable pasta in spoon
      Creamy Vegetable Pasta

    Popular Recipes

    • the sloppy joes one white plate
      Old Fashioned Sloppy Joes Recipe
    • stacked pancakes
      Easy Cinnamon Pancakes with Vanilla
    • chicken, rice and peas in small blue crockpot with lid on side
      Creamy Chicken Pea Skillet with Rice (One Pan!)
    • carrot sticks on a plate
      How to Cut Carrot Sticks
    • turkey burger sliders spread out on large plate
      The Easiest Turkey Burger Sliders
    • Sandwich with beef, cheese and onion on a long roll
      Easy Philly Cheesesteak Recipe

    Kids Crafts & Activities

    • eight melted crayon hearts in rows
      Fun with Melting Crayons in the Oven
    • different pastas dyed different colors drying on parchment paper
      How to Dye Pasta for Crafts
    • two red fish puppets
      Adorable DIY Fish Puppet
    • tissue paper vase with red and yellow flowers
      Cow-Themed Tissue Paper Vase
    • red and white Mushroom Village house
      Adorable Mushroom Craft for Kids
    • paper plate sunflower with pasta petals
      Paper Plate Sunflower Craft with Pasta

    Footer

    ^ back to top

    About

    • About Platein28
    • Privacy Policy
    • Accessibility Policy
    • Graphics courtesy of Fred Chao

    Newsletter

    • Sign Up! for emails and updates

    Contact

    Have comments or questions?

    Send us an email!


    We earn a commission through purchases made through partner and affiliate sites.

    Copyright © 2020-2022 Platein28 on the Foodie Pro Theme

    We use cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to use this site, you consent tocookiesbeing used. Visit our Privacy Policy for more information.
    ACCEPT
    Privacy & Cookies Policy

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT