Pinteresting Summer

Challenge 24- Recycling Old Crayons (Got to love being eco-friendly)

I have been wanting to try this pin for a long time and have been saving (or some might say hoarding) all of the crayons the kiddo has been getting from the restaurants we eat at for a while. She actually got one of these recycled crayons in a very nice Valentine she got at daycare. I was shopping the Dollar Spot at Target before the 4th and saw a silicon ice tray with star shapes and thought it would be great for this pin.

Step one is to remove all of the paper from the crayons, I started the hard way and tried peeling it by hand. After a few crayons (and I a lot of crayon wax stuck under my thumbnails) I started channeling my engineer husband and got out an Exacto knife and sliced the paper off (very carefully, I could have very easily slice my fingers so watch out). I threw the crayons into a large Ziploc bag when I was finished.

I didn't use any brown or black in my bag because I wanted them to be colorful and not just dull and dark. Also as you can see there were a few thicker ones along with some smaller ones and they came from all different brands. Next the toddler and I took out some frustration out on the bag with the back of a large cooking spoon (I wanted her to help and I thought a hammer might put holes in the bag) to crush up the crayons into small and easy to melt pieces. At this point I pre-heated the oven to 250F.

We then filled the star mold with crayon pieces, trying to mix colors and fill them up fairly full. Some one the piece were still pretty big and it didn't take much to fill up all 10 stars.

I put the mold on a cookie sheet in case there happened to be any spillage. In the oven they went and the timer was set for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes they were melted nicely and I took them out to cool. As you can tell the mold melted a bit as well (that's what you get for a dollar from Target). The key to keep them from breaking is letting them cool completely, then pulling around the edges of each shape, and the popping them up by pressing on the bottom.

I had two break but that was from my impatient testing to see if they were ready, and the still worked as crayons they just didn't look as nice. These are fun and easy to do and I still have a pretty full bag of crayon bits and pieces so I know I'll do this again. I will however search for molds that are more oven friendly.

Check my post tomorrow for the special instructions to win a 25 dollar iTunes giftcard for my 25th Pinniversary. You have to check back tomorrow July 16th after 10am CST for instructions.