How to: Recycle Broken Crayons Into Colorful New Crayons!

Today's craft project is: Recycled CRAYONS!

Recycling broken crayons into new ones is a fun, easy, inexpensive craft to do with your kids -- and it's a great opportunity to teach children the value of upcycling! So, next time your child breaks a crayon during a coloring session, save it in a special box and put it aside to do this craft!

Materials You Will Need:

• Broken crayon pieces

• Muffin Tin/mini muffin tin Or, fun alternatives to muffin tins: candy molds, ice cube trays, silicone molds with fun shapes

1) Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.
2) Peel all of the paper labels off of your broken crayons and separate them by shades of color -- keeping oranges and yellows together, blues and greens together, and pinks and reds together. If you mix them all, it will turn out to be a yucky color!
3) Spray your molds, muffin tins, etc. with cooking spray. You can use paper muffin liners, you will just have a ridge around your crayons. And don't use your favorite muffin tins, buy one from a thrift store or use an old one.

4) You will need about 1 cup of broken crayons to make 12 larger crayons as I did. Ice cube trays and mini muffin tins will yield more.

Oven: If you are using muffin tins/silicone molds in the oven, fill your tins about 1/2 full with broken crayons, separated by shades of color. Put them in the oven for about 8 min. You will need to remain close by and check in on them periodically because they will melt quickly.
Once your crayons have melted, take them out of the oven carefully, and then take a toothpick and swirl the wax around. Let them cool. Cooling takes a while, so to help the process along, you can put them in the freezer. Just be sure that they are flat so they harden evenly. Once they are hard, pop them out of your molds! (If you put them in the freezer, they will have condensation on them, so allow them to air dry for a bit.)

Microwave: If you're using candy molds or ice cube trays, which cannot go in the oven, then microwave the crayon pieces in microwave safe cups or bowls (separate the color shades into different cups) for about 4-6 minutes. Then pour the melted crayons into your candy molds or ice cube trays and wait for them to cool and harden. Be careful -- once melted, the wax is very hot!

Your recycled crayons are now ready to enjoy! They make great, green holiday gifts! I found cute little boxes (pictured above) and I had some crayon stickers which I placed on the outside of the box. You may also wrap your crayons in cellophane and tie it with a ribbon while attaching a couple of regular crayons to the outside so the recipient knows what they are. Recycled crayons are a fun, eco-friendly gift which will brighten a lucky child's day!