Homemade Crayons

One thing you will come to learn about me is that I LOVE shopping at thrift stores :o) This summer, one of the best things I have come across was a huge bag of Crayola brand crayons for only $3.

Of course I bought them, thinking I would make homemade crayons with them!

First, my mom, sister and I upwrapped all of the crayons. (We found it was easier to soak them in water first- the wrappers slide right off!)

Some of the crayons still had sticky residue on them, so we tried running them under hot water. Bad idea- the crayons started melting onto our hands 0:-) (Hint: Don't worry about the residue, it won't make a difference once you start making your crayon shapes.)

Once all the wrappers were off, I sorted them into basic color groups.

Then I broke the crayons into thirds and put them in silicon muffin tins. Shaped ice trays work too!

I put them in the oven. I turned it to a random temperature and just watched for the wax to melt into shape.

Once the wax was mostly to completely melted, I pulled them out and let them harden. Then I popped them out and had homemade crayons!

The kids at work had a ball with the different shapes and sizes. My toddlers (2yrs) could hold them easily and the preschoolers and school agers (3+), girls AND boys, were fascinated that it changed colors while drawing.

Here's a picture of my collection of molds- I got the majority of them from various thrift stores:

Silicon baking tins, silicon ice cube trays, jello molds, and candy molds. For the plastic ones, I've read that you can put your crayon pieces into a soup can and melt them that way, then pour them into the trays, let them melt, and pop them out. I still have to try these.

Toodles :o)