So the kids are back in school locally, and I have to say I feel bad for them. It stinks to be young and miss out on huge hurricane waves when your bones are still so pliable.
I thought this would be a fun craft for the little groms, or big groms, maybe. On occasion, humans are still seen using pencils (the horror!) and not a digital device. With that, we will always need the old fashioned delete button: the humble eraser. I wanted to have a little fun with it, and maybe bring a little of the stoke into the classroom.
They make this modeling clay that will bake into an eraser. I’ve never tried it, so I thought this would be a good, simple project to test it out.
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| Sculpey eraser clay- I picked it up for 40% off at the local craft store. Normally runs about $10. |
It comes in a few bright colors I thought would work. As a bonus, it came with a sculpting tool and small roller, but I mostly used the roller. As a form to cut out the little wax bars, I used one of my leather punches at 1 3/16″ diameter. You can get a small cookie cutter that will work the exact same.
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| Clay block, punch for form, and plastic roller |
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| My leather punch, around 1 3/16″ |
I rolled the little clay block in my hands to warm it up and made a chunk flattened on top and bottom that was around 1/2″ thick. From there, I pressed the circle punch into the clay to make the wax cake, rounding off the top edges a bit with my finger:
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| Round off the top sharp edges so it looks more like a cake of wax. |
I repeated this with other colors, and even mixed colors when I has bits left over:
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| Pre-baked wax bar. |
I put these in the over at 250 degrees for around 40 minutes due to the thickness of the clay.
Next, I got some sticker paper and made some small “Surf Wax” labels for each bar on the computer as well as some cling wrap to wrap around each bar:
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| Erasers, sheet of labels, and wrap for the erasers. |
I cut out around each label (only as many as needed) and cut a circle of plastic wrap for each bar that was around 1/2″ larger all around than the eraser. Then, I wrapped the plastic wrap on, keeping the top smooth and wrapping the rest around the bottom. I then affixed a label to each one, onto the plastic. Here they are, with a quarter for size reference:
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| Tiny wax! |
They really work! And they don’t color up your paper, that’s a bonus. Maybe I could use these to erase all the pencil notes out of my 15 year old textbooks so I can sell them back. Nothing’s happened in Modern Physics while I’ve been gone, right???
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