creative ways to make new crayons from old crayons! great gift!

[carrie_grace]

Since there has been tons of intrest in this project I thought I would condense the info into one post and keep it sticky through the holidays.

Making Toddler Friendly Crayons

Written by Allison of Funky Little Monkey.

I am a rather creative person. I love anything and everything that has to do with crafts and even before I had kids I dreamed of being creative with them. Well my son is now 16 months old and I figure the time is right to get him into the arts and craft mood. But everything seems to small for his little hands to hold.

I bought a box of used crayons at a consignment sale last week and decided that I was going to make some chunky crayons for my son to color with (since he is just 16.5 months old). I used only regular Crayola crayons since I figured that not all crayons color alike - so they must not melt alike either (I'll do another batch of just Rose Art Crayons next).

I then took a mini-muffin pan and coated it with a dab of vegetable oil in each space (just enough to show that's it's there but not enough to leave it dripping in oil).

I then took the labels off all of the crayons and broke them into fours. You can either pick the labels off one by one - or you can soak them in cold water to get the labels wet and they will slide right off - your choice (I picked them off one by one just to be difficult.)

I choose to do crayons in like colors but you can do high contrasting - your choice. I separated them out to each mini-muffin space - about three to four crayons per space:

I put them in an oven that had been preheated to 300 degrees and cooked them for 8 minutes (just enough to where they were liquid and melted and you couldn't see the actual crayon shape anymore:

From there I let them sit on the counter for 15 minutes until the congealed again. The I put them in the freezer for another 15 - 30 minutes. It was there in the freezer that they started breaking away from the pan - so when I took them out they just came right out of the pan:

And that's it .... for $3 (which is what it cost me to buy the huge box of used crayons - which I still have more of)... I made some cool toddler friendly crayons for my son:

This tutorial was written by Allison of Funky Little Monkey.

You can also use shaped muffin and cookie pans to get different shaped crayons.  DON'T TRY TO MELT THEM IN A SHEET PAN AND CUT WITH COOKIE CUTTERS, IT DOES NOT WORK!

These are just a few examples...

Happy crafting ladies!

[madimoma]

very cute

[LovemyQ]

I am soooo gonna do this!  Oh yeah, is your pan then reusable for food?

[funnymom32]

I saw this the other day and I SO want to do it.  Somewhere in my house I have a box of random crayons.  When I find it I will do this project. 

[carrie_grace]

unfortunately you probably won't want to bake in the silicone pans after this project...

Quoting LovemyQ:

I am soooo gonna do this!  Oh yeah, is your pan then reusable for food?

[mnwintercritter]

Right now our dollar store has ice molds in both tree and santa shapes. I find a lot of ice and jello molds at thrift and dollar stores that are fun to use.

[RachGr]

wow, I want to try this!

[MamaTiffTiff]

I love this idea. I so will be doing this!

[artC1s]

This is something I've been looking for, thanks for posting this!

[noworries99]

how cute!

[krazykoolmommy]

What a great idea!!  I know I have extra or broken crayons lying around.  I can't wait to try this!