Recycling Broken Crayons into Gifts

I know if you are anything like me you can get your hands on a million and one broken crayons at any given moment.  Most of us just throw away and replace them. Again. sharpen the broken ones too.  Well, recently my dear husband got the idea melt them into molds and make new crayons to give for gifts to the small people in our family.

I’ll be the first to admit my apprehension at the idea of melting anything in my kitchen…but hey, what the heck. So this weekend we decided to give it a go and see if we could pull it off.

Recycled Crayon Experiment

Materials Crayon Gifts

*Broken crayons of assorted color

*Razorblade, or your choice of cutting device

*Empty Betty Crocker Warm Delights pans, or other mold

Instructions to Recycling Your Crayons

Recycling Broken Crayons

1. Gather all the broken crayons and remove all paper from them.  Sort by color.

Recycling Your Broken Crayons

2. Chop and sort colors into specific molds. Now I’ll admit the chopping is tedious and can take a while, but the end result is so cool!

*Note* I should add here that the chopping with razor blades should only be done by a responsible adult. I am not responsible for any accidents occurred during the craft.

Recycling Broken Crayons

3. Microwave on low, stirring every 30 seconds.

4. Allow to cool completely.

Recycling Broken Crayons

5. Pop out and allow to harder for about 4 more hours.

**It would be great to design a wrapper for your home made crayons, but we haven’t done that..yet. :) Just be prepared to wash your kiddo’s hands when    they’re done coloring.

We gave these to the girls as a surprise and they have been a huge hit! Bigs was even telling perfect strangers in Walmart all about the homemade crayons Mommy and Daddy made for her. What a great treat and it didn’t cost me anything, besides some time.  I think these would make a great Christmas/Birthday Gift for your small  people too!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Mama Says. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses to “Recycling Broken Crayons into Gifts”

Bobbi Janay December 23rd, 2009 at 12:56 am

It is so funny that you and Lisa over CAIP posted about the same thing but different ways to go about it. http://www.crazyadventuresinparenting.com/2009/12/make-your-own-crayons.html

Rebecca January 13th, 2010 at 12:49 am

That is so cool! I always saw those done to make rainbow crayons with all the colors mixed together, but how much can you color with a rainbow before that gets boring? Not long. I can’t believe I never thought to just make one of each color. Totally going to do this.

Kara January 13th, 2010 at 9:53 am

Great idea! We always have broken crayons laying around:)

Amanda January 13th, 2010 at 12:53 pm

I have to give all of the credit to my husband..I was perfectly complacent to just keep throwing them away :)

Amanda January 13th, 2010 at 12:54 pm

It’s SO easy. I think we’re going to make rainbow crayons next time! FYI tho: these do color the kiddos hands, so if you can create a wrapper then I would!

Anne January 13th, 2010 at 10:26 pm

Those are great, especially for little hands! I may have to make some to send to my nephews – cool auntie gets all the credit and mommy and daddy have to clean up the messy hands. ;)

Amanda January 13th, 2010 at 10:29 pm

They really are perfect for little hands…just fat enough they can hold on to them! What an awesome Auntie you are :)