creative ways to make new crayons from old crayons! great gift!
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.
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!
Handmade designer hospital gowns and gifts for baby!
So the other day I made a rainbow crayon. It needs a little work still but I think I worked out all the bugs for it.
So melt the crayons as per the directions on here, but make them VERY thin! I used two crayons per 'regular' size muffin tin *not the mini ones* and made a red,orange,yellow,green,blue and purple crayon. Let them set up and fall out of the tins. Then I stacked them all on top of one another and lightly melted them together. I put them into a cupcake paper first, but thinking back I wouldn't do that, just watch them so that you pull them out when they are soft. If you think it looks like one color is running all over. Take a cookie cutter that doesn't have a handle on it, and press all the way through the crayon. After you freeze it, they should pop right out and voila you have a rainbow crayon!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you & Thank you some more for posting this!! I just got done making these & my son is enjoying them as I type!! I'll admit some of the colors are less than appealling... but I anticipated that when I was making them. I wanted to experiment. You just never know when something you think will be ugly will turn out awesome ;) I cannot believe just how simple this is, and yet I never would have thought of this. I am totally making this for stocking stuffers for all the kids this Christmas!!!
looking for some craft ideas with leaves and my toddler....
- carrie_grace
on Nov. 6, 2008 at 8:38 PM