Here we are, my first tutorial. I guess I'll make it pretty simple. Valentine's day is coming up and if your chilren's school is anything like my neice's then you know how restricting the no-sweets rules can be. So here's another option: heart shaped crayons. they're super simple to make, and the kids can help too!
Valentine's Day Crayons.
Step one: Gather all your household's broken crayons. They don't have to be the same color or the same brand. Any will do!
Step two: Use an exacto knife to slit the wrappers lenthwise (adults only). Then pass the slit crayons to the kids so they can easily peel the wrappers off. Tip: use two gallon size ziplocs, one to collect the wrappers and one to collect the crayons.
Step three: sort by color (relatively). being sure to keep warm colors with warm and cool with cool. (so you won't end up with murky muddy looking crayons). Feel free to scribble a little with each one - you'd be surprised at how much those purples and blues look like black! Step four: Break each whole crayon into 3-4 peices (depending on the size of broken ones they can be left alone or broken again).
Step five: nearly fill each section of a silicone heart shaped ice cube tray (found in a pack of two for $2.5o at target right now). Keep colors sorted by warm/cold tone.
Step six: carefully place full tray into microwave and turn on for about 5-7 minutes. Stopping periodically to check and poke with a toothpick (as per 9yr old's liking). Crayons should look shiny but with some solid looking parts remaining (for swirled crayon). Melting too much will give you a solid colored crayon and possibly some melting of your silicone tray.
Step seven: Carefully remove tray from microwave (adults only!) and place into freezer for several minutes. Remove from freezer when crayons are still a little warm - this makes it much easier to remove them from the tray. Step eight: Remove crayons from tray and enjoy!
Great tip in the target trays! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI was going to try and figure this out for my 1 yo daughter who is always breaking (or nibbling on) her crayons. I was thinking chunky might be easier for her to work with. And I was just at target yesterday, oh well, I'll have to go back. Thanks for posting your experience so I don't have to experiment!
ReplyDeleteYea! Do you think though I could put these trays in the oven, even though they're slated for freezer use??
ReplyDeleteI made some crayons using a mold similiar to yours. It left a white residue on the outside of the mold and stained the mold with the color of the crayons. Did yours do the same thing?
ReplyDeleteTo Auntie Em - yes it did. I had had the trays around the house for about a year before finding a use for them so I figured it would be ok for them to be used only for melting crayons. Also, they may melt a bit if you leave them in the microwave too long. :)
ReplyDeleteOkay, that is great to know. I'll just use them for molds instead of food making. Thanks!
ReplyDelete