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The internet is FILLED with tutorials about making your own crayons. The crayons produced from said tutorials are always so perfect-looking: I mean, just LOOK at these hearts! I always knew if I ever attempted something like that the odds of it looking anything close to perfect would be low.
So imagine my surprise when I come downstairs one night to find that my husband, who is so far Pinterest-free, has embarked on his own crayon-making adventure. He basically took all of our son’s broken and worn down crayons of similar shades, melted them, stuck them in the fridge, and VOILA: new crayons were born.
Here are his instructions:
Amass all the broken crayons you have laying around the place, and remove all the paper from the outsides for recycling. (a tip: use a blade to cut or scrape the paper off — peeling them takes forever!)
Use cookie cutters or your imagination to shape aluminium foil into bowls for melted crayon. Make sure there are no holes or gaps for crayon to escape.
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Place crayon boats in boiling lake (pot on stove) to heat foil and thus your crayons.
Pull the moulds out of your water to let the melted crayon set on the counter. Make sure you spill ample crayon both in and out of your pot to make the next step more interesting.
Clean your cookware, countertops, ranges, floors, sinks, shoes, walls, and coffeepots using lavender oil. It remarkably removes crayon. WOW! But let someone else use the cookware right afterwards just in case there are trace oils left.
Note: you can also let the crayons chill in the fridge.
Pull your shoddy moulds out, remove crayons, and colour!
He also half-jokingly suggested that you then research better ways to do this project… which he did: here’s a link.
I made some in silicon star shaped bake ware, and made it unusable for any food. I didn’t try lavender oil, so thanks! I also mixed cheap crayons with nice ones, and they tended to separate out.
HA!! No way.. I finally got around to making our own crayons like this yesterday. I used a tiny muffin tin though.. greased it up with a little canola & they popped right out without residue. Now, I stirred them with a paintbrush end (to not dirty a utensil) and then wiped the colour on a tea towel. Genius. Maybe the lavender oil will take crayon out of fabric too?
I love these new chunky crayons.. so much easier for small hands! (and since I’m the resident crayon breaker, I guess easier for me too).
My good friend did this & used candy molds. They came out very nice looking. I have no idea what the molds looked like afterwards or if she intended to use them for food ever again or not, but the crayons are fun. She did layers, so they’re striped! 🙂
Too bad I couldn’t clean with lavender oil if I decided to try this myself… I’m horribly allergic to lavender. I guess I’ll just send my friend all the broken bits! 😉
i’m super allergic to lavender too! i just had to comment as this is the first time in 27 years i’ve seen another person who was. i can’t smell it but it gives me terrible headaches/nose bleeds if i’m around it. i broke out in hives (on my head!!!) when i accidentally used a lavender shampoo.
My son is incredibly allergic to lavender, too. It makes his skin look like it’s melting, and replaces it with something of a bubble packer consistancy. Which sucks because you know how many chemical free baby products contain lavender? All of them, I think.
I’m allergic as well. When I accidentlly use shampoo with lavenderp, my scalp is usualy fine but since I have long hair my back breaks out. And lavender is so common in everything sented!
I have heard, though anecdotally, that anything cleaning-wise calling for lavender, tea tree or peppermint oil you can substitute the others. Rosemary, garlic, olive and coconut oils also seem to have most of the same properties as the above for anything requiring anti-microbial (especially anti-fungal or insecticide) action–athletes foot, fleas, lice, etc. You may have varying levels of results, meaning some are obviously BETTER for some things than others and as far as aromatherapy goes they’re totally different, but that list for cleaning purposes should help give you some alternatives. I’m allergic to tea tree oil (sets off my asthma, hives if it touches me, and too much in the air gives me hives in my throat) and I haven’t yet found a recipe that called for it where lavender or peppermint oils didn’t work just as well.
As Heather has said – there are other oils that work – the one I use on most things (including when my fiancee super-glues his fingers together) is tea-tree oil. Works wonders!
My dad did this when I was a kid. I loved it. He also would use crayon pieces to make candles, which I remember thinking was super cool.
I used this technique as a kid to make rainbow crayons 🙂 Need to do the same with all the broken and half-chewed crayons filling up craft drawers in my desk!!!
I LOVE THESE!!! The man just kills me. omgomgomg
My favorite part of this post is the “ugly DIY” tag. I imagine all the things that would come up under that if my creative life was in a database. 🙂
That’s the general idea! Sean and I have a treasure trove of ugly DIY. 😉
When I was a kid we did this, and poured the wax into a puzzle tray. The puzzle was a very simple alphabet puzzle we’d grown too old for, so we had alphabet crayons.
Amazing idea!!
I heard that an easy clean up can be using cupcake paper. Peels right off and you can put the muffin tin in the oven. Haven’t tried it myself yet.
My mom used to do this all the time…the last time I was at her house I found some of them in the back of an old desk drawer
Ice cube trays work too