My kids love to color, so we have tons of crayons around the house. That means that we also have tons of crayon pieces around the house too, since we always end-up with a bunch that break. My daughter always wants me to glue them back together, but I have yet to come-up with a way to fix a broken crayon. The solution? Take those old, broken crayons and turn them into some fun crayons for the kids. It’s a great way to recycle your crayons.
How to Make Stained Glass Crayons
An easy way to reuse your crayons is to melt the little pieces together and create new crayons. If you use a mix of colors when you melt the crayons, you end up with a crayon that looks like a piece of stained glass. You won’t have the transparency of stained glass, so I haven’t come up with a way to use the finished product in that way, but I think it’s a fun way to make new crayons. If you don’t want a multi-colored crayon, you can stick with creating single color crayons.
Supplies Needed:
Muffin tin, muffin liners, or any mold that you’d like to use. Just make sure that it’s oven-proof.
Tin foil or muffin liners
Crayon pieces (with outer paper removed)
Oven
Here’s how you do it…
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Line your muffin tins (or molds) with tin foil. Or, just use the muffin liners without the pan. Use a cookie sheet to hold the liners. You can also melt the crayons directly in a non-stick mold, but lining it with foil helps it pop-out more easily.
3. Remove the paper from the crayons and drop small pieces into each mold. Use a mix of colors to get the stained glass look.
3. Place mold in oven until crayons have melted (approximately 2-4 minutes).
4. Remove from oven and let cool until hardened. This usually takes at least an hour.
5. When cool, remove foil and enjoy putting your new multi-colored crayons to use making colorful drawings.
Photos of the Crayon Making Process
Images by: woodenmask, abbybatchelder and justgrimes on Flickr. CC. Some Rights Reserved
Video for How to Make Your Own Crayons
If you use a muffin tin you’ll obviously get round discs. Great for coloring big pictures and large areas, but not as ideal for “staying within the lines”. So if you want pointier crayons, use a candy mold, cookie mold or a mold you make yourself that has the more typical long and skinny design. Just be sure that your mold is oven-proof. You don’t want to put a plastic candy mold in the oven.
Crayon Molds and Supplies
Cupcake Crayon MoldCHECK PRICE
Telescoping Crayon TowerCHECK PRICE
Great idea:) I featured your post in a related post on my site:) http://hintmama.com/2014/07/10/todays-hint-the-unbreakable-crayons/
Thank you Jennifer!