"New" Crayons

This past Saturday was cloudy and cool.  Rain drizzled down in a fine mist all day long.  It was the perfect day to stay in our pajamas and do some crafting.  I have never considered myself to be a crafty person. I can't sew.  I don't knit or paint or make floral arrangements.  I come from a long line of crafters, so I have always found my crafting deficiency to be quite sad, really.  I suppose that the crafting gene just skipped over me somehow.

However, in recent months, I have decided that the term "crafter" doesn't apply to me as much as the term "creator".  I've always considered myself to be a creative person.  I love to read and write and my imagination has always been larger than life.  So this past Saturday, I was itching to create something. I looked around at our limited supplies and suddenly remembered an idea that had come to me via an email chain a long time ago-- we can make "new" crayons! I enlisted the help of my three eager little people, and we got to work.

First, we got out our out-of-control tub of crayons and sorted through them all, setting aside the broken ones to use for our project (*bonus! you get to clean out your out-of-control crayon tub!).  Then I had the kids take off all the paper wrappers and place the waxy, colorful bits into a bowl.  This ended up taking quite a bit of time, so I pitched in and we eventually got it done.

Peeling off the paper proved to be quite satisfying

Ready to bake

Next we found an old cupcake tin (mine was gross and ready to be thrown out soon, so it worked great).  If you don't want to potentially ruin your cupcake tin, you can use foil cupcake liners in the cups.  We then placed a rainbow assortment of crayon bits into each cup.  If you have enough crayons, feel free to make singular colors like red, orange, yellow, etc. My kids were more excited to see the colors swirl together.  It's whatever floats your boat. Place the crayons in a pre-heated 250 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Fresh from the oven

When you take them out of the oven, you will have hot, swirly cups of liquid wax much like a tie-dyed t-shirt.  Let them completely cool, them pop them out!

 Our stack of "new" crayons

They are kind of mesmerizing, right?

My kids loved their new creations, and I even considered the whole experience a bit of a science lesson. Now I will say, these crayons are not good for detailed coloring.  They have no pointed tip and the rainbow colors came out muddled together in a nice shade of brown.  But the point of the project was to have fun creating something together. With that criteria in mind-- mission accomplished. I have to say I patted myself on the back for actually doing something crafty. I just might go join pinterest after all.