Recycled Crayons

This is a perfect way to use up all the broken tiny little pieces of crayons that nobody used and are at the bottom of the crayon bucket. You can recycle them and make new crayons in fun shapes! I made rainbow crayons... but next time I am going to make solid colored crayons. I can hardly wait to have a bunch of little crayon stubs so I can do this again.... it almost makes me want to sneak into the craft closet and break a few each night, hehe.

Here's how I made them:

I took a bunch of our broken crayons and peeled the paper off (which really stunk to do... and made me almost not finish my recycling project...). Then I chopped them up to be little pieces with just a regular knife and cutting board:



Then I put them in a mini muffin tin (or you can use a regular sized muffin tin) (you can line it with foil-- I didn't, and the pan came out clean with no problems):



And baked them in the oven (I started it at 150° but it was taking forever so cranked it up to 200°, which I will start at next time):



...until they were melted:



Then I popped them out once they were cooled. Voila! New rainbow crayons, that everyone wants to use because they are so cool and different.

I did notice that while they baked, they was separated a tad.... leaving the "top" to have a more clear wax rather than pigmented wax. Next time I make them, I may do like colors together in each well so that I can mix them up a tad while baking to keep them from separating.

You could also use a candy mold to make shapes and just melt the crayon pieces in a jar in super hot water and pour into the molds and allow to cool.