I'm pretty sure anyone who has children has a massive collection of broken up, peeled, junky crayons sitting around in a tin or a bag. This quick and easy, kid-friendly project gives new life to those old crayons!
Step 1: Scrounge up all the junky crayons you can find
The brand of the crayons doesn't matter, they'll all work for this.
Step 2: Peel off the Paper
Stirring the crayons up in a bowl of luke-warm water for a couple of minutes makes the job so easy!
Most of the papers will just roll off after soaking :)
Lay the crayons out on a towel as you go to make sure they dry.
Step 3: Color Fun!
Break up the crayons into smaller bits and mix them as you like. Place the bits into the cups of a mini-cupcake pan. ($3.00 Christmas Tree Shop!) Even though most crayons are non-toxic, I would either use foil cupcake liners or devote a cupcake pan to projects only. Here, we kept our colors in the same family, but you can get as funky as you like. Because we snapped our crayons into small bits, the colors will mix only slightly. You can also use a grater to create a speckled effect :)
Step 4: Get Cookin'!
Preheat your oven for 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Pop the cupcake pan in and give it 3-5 minutes. They just need to melt, NOT COOK!
Step 5: Cool them off
Let them sit for 5 or so minutes to cool slightly.
This one was our favorite.
One they're cooled a bit, place the cupcake tin in the freezer for another 5 minutes. This will harden the crayons up quickly and ensure that they just pop right out of the pan.
Voila!
Thanks to freezing them for a bit, the crayons have a unique little shape that allows them to stack, which is perfect, because...
then they fit into a toilet paper tube, which is perfect because...
then you can fold the ends of the tube and let your kiddos decorate them to make a little case for your new amazingly awesome crayons! YAY!