Art : DIY Upcycled Crayons
Long ago, when there wasn't any reason to Beat the Heat.
My mom had a bucket full of old crayons with lots of bits and pieces.
So, Henry, Grandma and I made some upcycled crayons.
I read, somewhere at the time, about a tip for removing the paper on the crayons by soaking them in water.
It didn't seem to help, and some reason, I had the brilliant idea of adding hot water to the tub, thinking that would help the paper come off better. Instead it only melts the crayon. Not the best idea I've had. Looking back, I think its a brand thing with the crayons. Some brands the paper came off much easier, while others were really stuck on good.
This was a great fine motor activity for Henry. He tried his best to remove the papers. He didn't stick at it long, he was in and out, helping on and off.
Once the tedious job of removing the paper was finished, Henry and Grandma broke the crayons into pieces and put them in a mini muffin tin.
Not really sorting them, but keeping them with like colors, or only one or two colors per cup. [This way we didn't end up with all different shades of browns.]
Henry waited patiently as the crayons were melting in the oven. Checking in on them every so often.
It didn't take long, about 20 minutes or so set at a low temperature [I can't remember exactly what we set it at, I believe around 200-250 degrees].
Henry observed what happened to the crayons when they came out of the oven, being very careful not to touch.
We set the muffin tin of melted crayons in the freezer to help them set up faster.
Once they were hardened, we had beautiful results!
Grandma's bucket of crayons made two and half of these muffin tins of upcycled crayons!
They ended up as Valentine's Day gifts for the big boy grandsons.
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Henry is 3 years.
George is 10 months.
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Labels: Activities, Activities for Preschoolers, Art, artsed, Colors, Crafts
7 Comments:
We love doing this! We make them at Christmas time in a silicone Christmas tree muffin pan. Then we give them as a gift with a coloring book!
Love this idea! We sure are going to copy this... :)
We love making crayons, too! It's one of my favourite upcycling activities :-) We've also done them with silicone molds, but you have to be careful of the quality of the silicone, as we've had mishaps with some! (see http://mamapeapod.blogspot.com/2011/05/fruity-crayons-berry-big-disaster.html )
We did the same thing, and used the silicone tree tin as well. We also made some snowflake ones from a silicone snowflake tin. I try to keep a look out for various shaped tins for just this reason. I loved how yours turned out. I do have a question though. When we did ours, we often had a bit of clear wax on top, that of course was a barrier, preventing coloring on that side. We used Crayola crayons. I just shaved it off, but it was tedious. It doesn't look like yours have that problem. Do you have any ideas on why that could be?
Beautiful post with all the great pics to help the reader enjoy the process! Funny how everyone has enjoyed this idea for Christmas shapes, I've only ever done it at Valentine's Day with my heart shaped tins. Great turn out with your muffin tin shaped ones. They would look exciting to any child! Love the idea of putting with a coloring book @Lindsay! We have set them on top of a white paper doily inside a clear treat bag for Valentines gift. Thanks for sharing! I'll have to get creative now it seems so my 4yr old can enjoy them in a different way. Love it!
we did these n heart shapes and I plan to do them again this year for the girls to give their friends as gifts - so much fun!!!
Omg! This is brilliant!!!!!
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