Start off the new school year right by creating a fun crayon-shaped frame to showcase your new school photo! This activity is perfect for preschool and elementary school-aged children who want to do a fun back-to-school craft. If you are tired of plain picture frames, this craft is for you!
Supplies:
Colored popsicle sticks (or the typical brown color if you do not have colored ones!)
Glue/tape
Colored paper
Markers
Scissors
Before we begin, make sure you have all of the supplies ready on a clean and flat workspace, like a desk or table. You may also want to cover your workspace with paper towels or newspaper since we will be using materials that can get a little messy!
Step 1: First, line up a bunch of popsicle sticks with their ends pointing side to side (horizontal), rather than up and down (vertical). The amount of popsicle sticks you use depends on how big your popsicle sticks and your school photo is! You will want to use less popsicle sticks for a small photo and more popsicle sticks for a big photo. I found about 8 sticks to be a good size for my photo!
Step 2: Next, place two new popsicle sticks going the opposite way of the ones you lined up. This means put them on top of the other popsicle sticks with their ends pointing up and down (vertical). These two popsicle sticks are going to hold the others in place! Once you’ve put them in the right spot, attach the two popsicle sticks to the other sticks using tape or glue! If you use glue, let it dry before starting the next step.
Step 3: When the glue has dried, flip the popsicle stick frame over. If your popsicle sticks are the usual brown color, we will now color them with markers to become the color of our “crayon”! You can use any color you want! If you have colored popsicle sticks, you can skip this step.
Step 4: Now that our “crayon” frame is the color you chose, it is time to add the tip of the crayon- the part that you color with! To do this, we are first going to draw a triangle onto paper that is the same color you used to color the popsicle sticks. For example, I used green popsicle sticks so I am using green paper to create the tip of my crayon. The bottom of the triangle should be as long as one popsicle stick because we are going to put this on top of the frame to make it look like a real crayon!
Step 5: Once you’ve drawn the triangle, carefully cut it out. Then, tape or glue it to one end of the popsicle stick frame! If you use glue, remember to give it time to dry before starting the next step.
Step 6: Next, we are going to add a design to the top and bottom of our “crayon” that looks like the design on the paper wrapper of Crayola crayons. To do this, we are going to take a black marker and draw two wavy lines close together all the way across the top popsicle stick. Then, color all of the space on that popsicle stick above the top wave line black and all the space below the bottom wavy line black as well. Repeat this on the very bottom popsicle stick.
Step 7: Now we are ready to add your school photo to the frame! I wanted my school photo to look like the wrapper of the crayon. To do this, I first glued my photo to another piece of green paper. I left space on the side of my photo to write on later. Then, I placed the paper on my frame to see where I needed to cut it. Then, I cut the paper and made sure to leave enough space on the side to write something in the next step.
Step 8: Next, we will add your name and school year on the paper next to the photo! Since my photo was from my graduation, I wrote that instead of my grade. If you need help with writing, you can ask an adult to help you with this step!
Step 9: Finally, we will glue or tape the piece of paper with our photo and message on it to our crayon frame!
You have now completed the craft and have your very own crayon-shaped school photo frame! You can use it as a decoration and to let friends and family know what grade you just started. It is also a great conversation starter about how the new school year is going and what your favorite parts are so far. I hope you enjoyed creating this frame!
~Made by Maddie W.