Super Eco & Budget Friendly Holiday Gift Idea -- Carved Crayon Portraits!

In my household, it's not uncommon to stumble over covertly discarded plastic toys and childhood treasures that are seemingly designed to cause instant whiplash to those who dare to cross their path.

Tripping over plastic junk is bad enough, but to heap insult upon injury, I've been known to accidentally flatten many a Crayola crayon in my day so that they become pulverized and essentially a part of the floor. Fun times, fun times.

In those cases, I scrape up the remnants and as I stare at the colored pile heaped within my palm, I contemplate how I can possibly recycle it.

Sure, I've done the waxed paper "autumn leaf" thing. Yup, I've also tried to make my own chunky crayons for the kidlets.

I've even created homemade firestarters with broken melted crayons and dryer lint -- I can really be resourceful when I put my mind to it.

At some point, though, you'll find that you have piles of crayons that are actually still in tact, but for some mysterious reason, your children are no longer drawn to their coloring books like they once were. 

After seeing the work of multimedia artist Diem Chau, I know exactly what perplexed crayon owners should do!!

Sit your rug rats down and give them a lesson in crayon carving -- if they're just a little too young to do it themselves, give them a plastic spoon instead (and watch them sweat).  It's kind of fun.

It's no secret that crayons are pretty slim in width, so I'm guessing that carving them requires a steady hand and pretty great eyesight, but what a outcome -- I don't know about you, but I'm really enchanted with this!

Chau even whittles commissioned likenesses of family members -- sssshhhhh, I feel a great DIY greenie holiday gift idea coming on.

While I'm all about supporting artists, her entire range of crayon portraits are sold out (according to her website...except for her commissioned pieces), so in that case, it seems totally understandable that eco-art loving greenies would want to emulate her work in order to fulfill their holiday gift quota without breaking a budgetary sweat -- who's game?