Embroidered Crayon Apron

I wasn't sure how exactly to title this because I know there are crayon aprons that hold crayons and this is not what I'm referring to. But, I think some of you might like this idea.

Several months ago I was asked to plan an activity for 12 and 13 year old girls. My daughter, Melanie, (who was 13 at the time) thought up this neat idea. She wanted to make aprons where we trace on a pattern, color them with crayons and then embroider around them. We had started to make a crayon quilt before the fire but never finished it (for obvious reasons :D) and I thought it would be a fun and easy activity for the girls.

So, here are the supplies we used to make them.

1. One white or cream colored apron (we purchased them in the craft section at Wal-mart)
2. A box of crayons (Crayola seems to work the best)
3. A pattern (I'll talk more about that latter in this post)
4. Light box - here's the one I own
5. tape (preferably a heavier tape like masking)
6. iron
7. paper towels
8. black embroidery floss
9. embroidery needles
10. scissors

To start, we needed to figure out what pattern we wanted to put on the girls aprons. My daughter wanted a bee, her name and flowers. So to make it easier I just made all the girls the same pattern, except for their names. I found cute clipart at Clipart.com, (which is not free but I use it for my business) but you could find something anywhere online. I added their names with a cute font and we were in business!

Next, after printing off a pattern for each girl, they taped the pattern to the light box and starting tracing on their pattern with a pencil. We also tape on the apron so it doesn't shift. If you are using a thinner fabric you will want to iron freezer paper onto the fabric to make it stiff enough to trace onto. This works wonderfully!

Now that you have your pattern traced on it's time to color. My daughter likes to color in shades to give it depth. Again, if you are using a thinner fabric, leave the freezer paper on until after you are finished coloring. Will will be sorry if you remove it!

After coloring on the pattern, with a medium heat on your iron, you will cover the pattern with paper towels and iron until you leave no trace of crayon on your paper towels. You will go through quite a few paper towels depending on the size of your pattern. I suggest you get the cheap paper towels if you don't usually use them typically.

Once you're finished ironing, you can start embroidering! My daughter likes to use just a straight stitch but she has also used a button hole stitch for a few things as well.

Here's how my daughter's apron turned out.

All the other girls only put their names, with the bee and a couple flowers. But, Melanie was having so much fun that she wanted to add more flowers and stitch around the edges. She had so much fun that she's actually just starting her third apron.

Her second apron she made for my mom. Here's how that one turned out. As you can see there is much more detail. My mom loves it!

Here are some shots of her working on the one she is currently making on for me.

She has started stitching but I didn't get photos of that. I will definitely add photos of the finished apron when she's finished!

Lastly, she has been getting her patterns for her aprons at pccrafter.com. They offer lots of cute patterns for crafts at a pretty reasonable price. You can also preview everything before you purchase.