All The Colors

I have a slight addiction to crayons. Okay, it might go beyond that...I bought crayons and coloring books for myself right on up through college (now I pretend they're for the kids) and I might get a little giddy when packs of crayons go on sale for $0.25. I've been known to buy an entire case of crayons some years. Yes, yearS and therein lies the problem. I was a little lax for a while about letting the girls get into the crayon stash, so there were A LOT of partially used crayons lying around. As I was setting up our homeschool room here, I decided they only needed one big school supply box of crayons and what didn't fit in the box, would have to go (not counting my not-yet-opened stash, of course).

So, Sierra and I sat down and picked out all the broken crayons and the really well used crayons and then just grabbed out a few more so the box would close. We peeled all the paper off these crayons and put them in baggies to save for crayon reincarnation (turns out crayons are slightly Buddhist, who'd have thunk it?). None of the ideas I list here are my own, they're widely talked about in various places on the internet and I can't even link to something specific, because I read a lot of pages and then just gave it a whirl.

First, we did window hangings like we made when I was a kid. I haven't found our crayon sharpener yet, so I just used the small side of a cheese grater to shave the crayons. A crayon sharpener would work a lot better if you have one. The shavings are put between two pieces of wax paper: Then newspaper is put on top (to protect the iron). Set the iron on low and briefly iron over everything, checking frequently to see if the shavings are melted yet. Once everything is melted and cooled, cut it into a shape you like. Cut a frame from two pieces of construction paper and glue them on both sides of the wax paper.
Hang in the window to enjoy! Sierra decided she'd rather use less shavings next time so it's not so dark looking in the middle.

The other project we did today was making new crayons. Broken up pieces of crayon (may be easier to do this with a knife) are put in a muffin tin. Bake at 250 until they are all melted (it takes a little while, but do not leave the oven!!), then carefully take out of oven (careful not to swirl your colors together) and let cool completely. Voila, new, multi-colored crayons. I should have put more crayon pieces in each muffin tin.

I have plans to make candles as well, but can't find wicks here in town. We'll be heading up to the "big city" of Missoula on Saturday for an appointment and I'm assuming I'll be able to get wicks then and try out the candles this weekend. I'll post about it when I do!

A few small tips: I'm a crayola loyalist, other brands just aren't the same. I've read other brands may not work as well for some of these projects, but definitely don't mix brands in one project because they may have different melting points. I've also read washable crayons are more brittle when they're melted and cooled, so they don't work well either.