As I wandered through Staples the other day, a box of crayons caught my eye. It was a box of ninety-six Crayola crayons! Ninety-six? Are you kidding? I thought the ultimate was a box of 64. The small print reads, “96 Different Colors.” Nice.
But wait. There’s more. I turned the corner and saw another display with a box of one hundred and twenty crayons! “120 Different Colors”! Wow. That’s almost double what I thought was the ultimate box of crayons.
But wait. There’s more. I saw
A box of 24 Metallic Crayons
A box of 24 Pearl Crayons
A box of 24 Glitter Crayons
A box of 24 “Colors of Kindness”
A box of 24 “Colors of the World”
A box of 24 “Ultra-clean Washable Crayons”
A box of 8 Neon Crayons
A box of 24 Bold and Bright Construction Paper Crayons
I almost had to sit down. I don’t even know what some of these are. But I want to find out. I want to buy a box of each. I think I need about $50 for the whole set. I just want to see what all these different colors are called and what they look like on paper.
So I Googled “Crayola Crayons.” There are more!
Confetti Crayons
Pastel Crayons
An Ultimate 152 Crayon Collection
BJ’s Wholesale Club sells a bucket of 200 crayons!
Cosmic Crayons
Swirl Crayons
Mythical Creatures Crayons
Uni-Crayons
I may have a new hobby here: collecting Crayola crayons.
At certain times of the year, as the sun sets, it almost looks like the sky is on fire.
I usually have my phone in my pocket while I am driving. But on this occasion I placed it on the center console so I could plug it in to charge it. So when I turned onto this road and saw the fiery sky, I could quickly get a picture.
A photo can’t capture the palette of colors on the horizon. Who knew there could be so many oranges, reds, and yellows? If kept driving west, would I eventually reach a blazing fire lighting up the sky? Would I reach an active volcano, glowing with molten lava? Is someone smelting steel in a giant blast furnace off in the distance?
It’s a good thing I got the picture when I did. Those colors only last a moment. By the time I crossed the intersection, they had faded. The clouds had moved. The moment was gone forever, except in my mind and in my phone.
New crayons are essential at the beginning of an elementary school year. A box of twenty-four is all you really need. There’s a box of forty-eight that doubles down on all the different colors. But the best is the box of sixty-four. The assortment of oranges, yellows, and reds challenges all you thought you knew about color. Who knew that orange-red was different than red-orange? With hues like tangerine, pumpkin, and carrot in your hand, your sunset sky might look just like this one!
It’s cold. It’s a little rainy. We need something indoors to do with our grandchildren. My daughter-in-law suggests, “You could go to the Crayola Experience in Plano.” Really? I think I was more excited than anyone.
It’s only twenty minutes away. We got our tickets online at a discount. Loaded up the van and we were off. Pretty easy to find. Whoa – when we stepped out of the van we remembered just how cold it was, especially for us FL folks. But it was only a short walk and we were in.
If you like to color, like I still do, you are a fan of Crayola. RoseArt? No thank you. I need the real thing. I remember opening up that new pack of twenty-four at the beginning of each school year. The thrill was quickly eclipsed by the kid in class with a box of 48. But the real oohs and aahs were reserved for those who brought a box of sixty-four with the built-in sharpener.
When we walked in, we stopped at a kiosk where you could personalize a wrapper for a red, blue or green crayon. For a token, of course. Uh-oh. Tokens? Each of us got two with the price of admission. We might need to get more. We’ll see. I made a blue one for my grandson and I think my granddaughter made a red one.
No time to waste. Off to a coloring center. Here you sit at a counter and there are bins and bins of brand new crayons right there in front of you. Classic colors. Metallic colors. Pastels and browns and blues. Niche colors, like Mac-n-Cheese. It was amazing. Off to the side, you could stand in front of a camera and have a line drawing of yourself printed to color. Very cool. I made sure I scanned the pic on my phone so we could make more later.
We didn’t stay there long. There’s a spin art station. You put a crayon in a slot, the paper spins, and melted crayon makes a sunburst design. A second crayon adds an additional color. It quickly dries, we carefully take it from the spinner, and put it in our plastic bag keeper.
Just to the right was another station. A melting station, Here, you put a crayon in the melter and watched as it dripped into a mold. A blower cooled it before your eyes and just like that, you had a ring formed from a crayon. My granddaughter commented, “I never had a crayon ring before!”
I was always fascinated by melting and melted crayons. Growing up I had a high intensity desk lamp which generated more than enough heat to melt a crayon. I remember spending a lot of time creating mountains from melted crayons. I would melt the metallic colors first – gold, silver and copper. I would cover them with other colors, and then go mining for precious metals. On a sunny day, a ray of light and a magnifying glass melted deep holes into melted crayon hills.
What makes a crayon so appealing, so special, so unique? The smell, the assortment of colors, no drying time, the ease of making a shape and filling it with color. An art supply that appeals to both young and old.
Crayola has it’s own formula of a Play Doh-like substance called Model Magic. It’s a tad more elastic, but harder to separate than Play Doh. We had about an hour’s fun with that, too.
They had a show to watch, a live-video hybrid demo of how crayons are made. I was rapt. We got a free crayon on the way out, too.
On the way out, you go through the gift shop. One wall is completely covered with crayon towers in every color they produce. You can mix and match your own box, just like picking an assortment of craft beers for a six pack. You just can’t walk out without some crayons!
I would go back or to another location at the drop of a hat. What a great way to spend a morning!
Waite for it... 