Recycled Crayons

Recycled Crayons!

Crafty Dasies has a great tutorial on making recycled crayons. I already had a box of crayons that had an unfortunate accident,

and even more crayons that are the the larger (aka baby) size that my daughter won't use anymore. Perfect for making recycled crayons!

1. Using an exacto knife (or a 3 year old), take the wrapping off all of your crayons and break them into 1/2" to 1" pieces.

2. Option 1: Put "like color" crayon pieces into a mini muffin tin and bake at 275 for 6-8 minutes.

3. Option 2: Put "like color" crayon pieces into a microwave safe cup/mug and heat for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on how many crayon pieces you have in the mug. When it's melted, pour into a cute shaped ice cube tray or candy mold. I found my snowman and santa ones at Deseret Industries for .50 each. Don't use ones that you love or paid a lot of money for, because mine broke when I pulled it out of the freezer.

4. After the crayons come out of the oven, let them sit on the counter for a while, and then put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes. They should just pop out of the molds and you've got some great recycled crayons for little artists!

Put them in a gift tin with some tissue paper and you're ready to go!

Aren't these snowmen so cute!!! I love them!!

For the snowmen, I found a tin that fit the 8 colors perfectly and had some room to spare for a few sheets of blank paper (rolled up and tied) for coloring. This one is for my nephew :)

Here's just a couple of "crazy" santas we did with the extra melted crayons.

Cleanup was pretty easy too. We just soaked our mugs that we melted the crayons in, for about 30 minutes, in hot soapy water. The crayons cleaned right off the mugs!