Upcycled Crayon Turorial

I recently purchased two bags full of partially used crayons from a garage sale. The total cost $1.00. Score.

Here is the thing, I love crayons but I wanted to make them a little more than what they were. I did not come up with this idea. I have actually seen quite a few people upcycling crayons lately. I guess the big difference between my crayons and some of the others is that I went with combined colors not just solid colored crayons. I also only used crayons that have already had a lot of "fun" already (aka used crayons).

So here we go.

I started with a bunch of silicone ice cube trays I bought from IKEA.

I peeled the papers off of the crayons (the hardest part of this project), broke them, and put a few similar colors together. I also sprinkled a little glitter in the ice cube trays for some fun.

I pre-heated my oven to 275 and placed the crayons in the oven for twenty minutes until they were melted. The time will vary based on how many crayons you are melting.

Allow the crayons to cool and gently manuver the new crayons out. I found out the hard way that if your form has a lot of small parts it's probably going to crumble. My star crayons did not make it.

The heart crayons did a little better but I did not put enough recycled crayons into the ice cube trays so they turned out a little too thin.

Now we are talking! Here the flower crayons. I love them and I love the multi -layered colors.

Done and Done! Don't you love it.

A few people asked if the crayons started to "smell" when I baked them. They didn't. It was a nice safe project that I will happily do again. However next time I do it I am trying a different method. I will be using a double broiler and melting them over the stove. I will pour the crayons in a candy mold and voila, when they dry they should be nice and shiny (You might notice my crayons are a little dull). If you are interested in this method check out this tutorial at Homemade By Jill. Of couse the crayons won't have the multicolored goodness, but it is always fun to try new things:)