homemade crayons

for the boy's valentines this year, i thought we'd get crafty and make homemade crayons!  i got the inspiration from these cool ice cube molds i got at target's bargain bin.  i culled many online crayon recipes and wound up combining a recipe from martha's site and one from cookie magazine.

this project uses old broken crayons sans paper.  i thought we had a baggie of them somewhere, but they must have gotten thrown out.  it's just as well, as i think the majority of them were washable crayons, and supposedly washable crayons don't work with this project.  neither do cheap crappy crayons, like the ones you get at restaurants (i believe they are mostly wax and not much pigment).  i wound up buying a jumbo box of crayolas.

first, strip the paper off the crayons.  with over a hundred crayons, i used a scissors to slit the paper so it came off easier.  i didn't use brown or black crayons.  i also kept the metallic crayons (usually gold, silver, copper and bronze are included in packs) separate, so i could put a piece of each in each mold.

i sorted the crayons by color.  it helps to do this in natural light, as colors i thought were blue were actually purple, and greens were actually blue.  i suppose in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, becos i wound up dumping all the bits into the box and mixing them up.  but if you're anal retentive, sort by color.

put the crayons in zipper baggies, take a meat hammer, and whack the tar out of them.  take care in not ripping the bag or else the bits of crayon will come out.  the pieces should be the size of a pea.  we got some pieces the size of a small string bean though.

i didn't plan on mixing the colors in the box, i planned to pick the bits out of each baggie, so there would be a piece of each color in each mold.  it just seemed easier to mix them up so each crayon became its own piece of art.

we put bigger pieces in the bottom of each mold, then the smaller pieces and crumbs.  i filled each mold to the top.  in hindsight, i would have put the pieces of metallic crayon in first, then the rest of the crayons.  i also wished i had more metallic crayons - 4 metallic crayons do not stretch far.

put the molds on baking sheets.  the recipes i found suggested baking the crayons anywhere from 150 F (for 30 minutes) to 400 F (for 5 to 10 minutes), so i decided to split it in the middle and baked mine at 250 degrees F, for 15 minutes (give or take how big your mold is).  the hearts took about 15 minutes.  the crayons in the muffin/ice cube mold took a few minutes more.

let the crayons cool.  i popped mine out after about 20 minutes, and they probably could have sat another 10 minutes or so.

i used silicone molds, but many recipes suggested using metal muffin molds (martha's) and foil muffin papers (various online recipes).  regardless of what you use, realize that after you make the crayons, the mold is pretty much ruined, except for making more crayons.

i did not spray the molds with cooking spray.  i don't know if this would alter the results of the crayon, and i had faith that the crayons would just pop out of the mold (as they did).  if you use a metal mold and the crayon sticks, pop the mold into the freezer for an hour or so and they should pop out easily.

each mold made 14 heart shaped crayons, and with 4 molds, i had plenty of crayons to give each of the boy's classmates 2 crayons a piece, plus an eraser:

i found the glassine bags in the wedding favor section of michael's - any good craft or hobby store should have these.  i also bought scrapbooking stickers (actually felted hearts by martha stewart at michael's) which i glued to each bag.  you can use anything to decorate the bag - stickers, glitter, confetti, whatever twirls your beanie.  another cool thing to do would be to print out your valentine message on a small square of paper/cardboard, then fold and staple it over the opening of the bag, like a package.  the possibilities are endless!

this is an excellent project to do with little ones for an "indoors" sort of day.  you can buy different sized molds for any holiday or season.  these crayons would make great favors for a party or for halloween treats (just make sure you remind the recipients they aren't edible!).  use bigger molds, and you can make big chunky crayons for toddlers - big enough for them to hold in their tiny hands.  multicolor crayons are also great for "rubbings" (rubbings with paper and crayon over raised lettering or pictures, such as memorial stones or plaques).  best of all, you're recycling old crayons (and we all know how kiddos hate using broken or stubby crayons!)

have fun, create and add color to your and your child's life!