Welcome to another day of Kids Summer Boredom Buster ideas! Today we’re making homemade crayons!
This activity is super easy, and chances are you have some broken old crayons already laying around! All you need is a muffin tin, or silicone baking pan and voila! Homemade rainbow crayons!
Supplies:
- used, broken crayons no one likes to use anymore!
- metal muffin pan, or silicone muffin pan (They come in lots of fun shapes!)
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit
- Fill muffin tin with chunks of peeled broken crayons (For our rainbow theme we mixed lots of colors together, but you can do one color per spot if you choose. They were really fun to draw with)
- Put muffin pan in oven for about 8-10 minutes or until crayons are melted.
- Once crayons are cooled, pop them out of your muffin pan for some fun rainbow coloring! Super easy and the kids love ‘em. And look how nicely they stack for storage! (PS…they came out of my muffin tin very easily…I only note this because I was slightly concerned about getting my pan cleaned…)
Enjoy coloring with your new homemade crayons!
I did this last summer with my then 2 1/2 year old and she LOVED new ‘new’ crayons! Great of you to share this on your blog so other’s can do it too. It’s simple, and the kids can help out with getting the crayons ready and making the different combinations of colours. Try difference types of blue all together to make some wonderful skies and oceans 🙂
Did this last year with my kiddos…
WORD OF WARNING!!!
Do not use silicone pans unless you’re ready to trash them. The crayons pop out easily, but the clean up is nearly impossible. 😛
I suggest going to the thrift store and buying a used muffin tin (or used silicone muffin pan) for a dollar or so and using that one exclusively for this kind of crayon project.
Really? I’ve heard the silicone works great…hmmm…good to know!
no, im a 12 year old and i make these when im at home alone and bored. all you have to do is put it back in the oven for a few miniutes, melt the excess wax, and wipe off immediately
I’ve done this with all 3 – silicone, uncoated cupcake pan, and coated cupcake pan – Wilton brand at Wal-mart (nothing fancy). Silicone – come out easily but trash the pan. Uncoated – UGGH! A nightmare to get out and then you have to trash it. Coated – as your pic shows you used – easy peasy! Easy to “eject” and easy to clean (actually just run it thru the dishwasher and I didn’t even have to scrub it)….
I love the idea of different tints and shades of the same primary color. Blues, greens, oranges for sunsets… so neat! We save broken crayons in a ziplock bag in the classroom. When it’s full – we melt them into crayons.
Oh, you can also grate them (kids used a standing grater with a rubber bottom). Put them on paper plates and melt in the micro to make planets… so cool – but a big hot mess – and we (umm – I) had to clean the micro out… They looked cool, though. Also, the dried crayon falls off… messy. You can string them together and make the MVEMJSUP system… inner and outer… fun. Got it on a blog site.
Goodness – I wish I only knew of this sooner! Embarrasingly enough, I hate to admit just how many broken crayons I threw away over the past 2 years because I thought they no longer had anymore practical use. Thank you SO much for sharing this easy, yet haunting recipe with us ;0)
In response to the posts above : an easy no-mess / no-fuss way of making these is to make them in whatever muffin tin you have BUT line them with muffin cups! Super easy to get out and no cleaning at all. Just toss the paper or metallic muffin cups when after you’ve taken the crayons out 🙂
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thanks for posting this. My daughter and I have been saving broken crayons and the ones the restaurants hand out with the menus for a couple of years now. We’ve been wanting to do this project for a while, but we never have. When I saw your post, I pulled out the crayons and my two children baked them this morning. We made “Wiggly Crayon Wheels” to include in my son’s birthday party favor bags. (We had a Wiggles birthday party, so we called them wheels and that went right along with the Big Red Car theme.) The kids loved them.
This is a great idea!! I want to do it with my kids. Just a quick question, though, it is 250 degrees Fahrenheit, not Celsius, isn’t it??
I have a couple of old tins that I bought at a garage sale that I use for non-food projects.
I am glad I found your blog via Google as I am making homemade crayons in a snowflake silicone mold for my American Heritage Girls for Christmas. Have a beautiful weekend!
Something else we did with some of our old, broken crayons. Made candles for bad weather days. It’s really simple and our son enjoyed making them. I got a package of the small, bathroom sized paper cups, wicks and wax from a local craft store and used our old crayons to color the wax. It doesn’t take much of the crayon, so we actually have enough to do this craft too. Simply poke a small hole, just the size of the wick into the bottom of the cups, insert the wick through the hole (If the hole is too large, use a little play dough around the wick on the bottom of the cup on the outside) and make them long enough to tie onto a pencil laid across the top of the cups (I can usually use one pencil for two or three cups and their wicks) , melt the wax and crayon, then pour into the prepared cups. Let them cool and harden, then tear the cups off and the candles are made!