Summertime Craft for Kids - Candles on the Grill

This is a great summertime craft for both kids and adults but make sure there is appropriate supervision as this project involves the use of an open flame.

Required materials:

Coffee cans

Lots of crayons (old broken pieces are fine)

Candle wicks (can be found in your local craft store)

Pencils or sticks (one per candle made)

You will need a lot of crayon pieces so you should either plan ahead for this project by collecting crayons for awhile or make it a group activity and ask everyone to bring a bunch of crayons with them. You can either use old broken pieces or if you don't want to wait and collect pieces, you can use new crayons but they will melt quicker if they are broken into smaller pieces.

Make sure the coffee cans have been cleaned and dried. Remove the paper wrapper from the crayons and depending on how many crayons you have, divide them into the coffee cans. You can either sort them by colors or mix them to create new colors.

Have an adult start the grill and place each coffee can on a low flame. Mix the crayons with either a stick or disposable spoon until you have a smooth wax liquid.

While the crayons are melting, tie a piece of the candle wick to each stick or pencil, the wick should hang down to form a "T" shape. The length of the wick will determine how tall your candle can be.

Once the crayons are totally melted, turn the grill off but leave the cans on the hot surface. Make sure everyone knows that the coffee cans are extremely hot and that they are not to touch them!

Now dip the wick into whichever color wax you want to start your candle with. Continue dipping, allowing the wax to cool slightly before switching colors, until you have a candle of the desired size. If the wax hardens before you are done dipping simply turn the grill back on and melt the wax again.

In order to have a flat bottom on the candle, you can either have an adult press it onto a flat surface while the wax is still warm and pliable or you can wait until they are full hardened and cut the bottom off to create a level surface.

Hang the pencils to allow the wax to fully dry and harden. Then cut the wick off of the pencil leaving enough wick to light and enjoy your new candle.

Note: These are burnable but please take caution to make sure they are lit on a proper, flat surface and never left unattended.