Crayons

Besides being a wife, I'm also a mom. I have a small child and she's a pretty big focal point in my life.

Last night we were coloring, while waiting for Husband to come home from picking up the takeout (roasted chicken for him and Salad Nicoise for me -- Daughter shares what she chooses off our plates). I noticed an abundance of broken crayons in her stash. This is no surprise given that she went through a stage where peeling the paper from crayons, then breaking them into small pieces gave her more pleasure than drawing. Nevertheless, I noticed she won't use these tiny gems and they aren't really useful for me to draw with either.

Being a bit of an eco-nut and a little frugal, throwing them away without offering them new life, isn't an option.

I started thinking about melting them into "new" crayons and figured my next best step would be a little Google. The idea of using muffin tins didn't thrill me (boring shape and hello, I cook food in them) and neither did a muddy mess of colors blending together. I found two sites that appealed to me for various reasons:
Chica and Jo
and
Make and Takes

If you don't bother to read the comment section, take care not to microwave the crayons as suggested in the 2nd link. Apparently it can lead to problems. No, I haven't tried it but there's no reason to risk destroying an expensive piece of kitchen equipment when there are other options. An exercise in a little patience is good for all of us.

The first site provides ideas for keeping the colors separate and better shapes than a muffin tin provides. The second provides time and temperature information for cooking, which I appreciate. I found temperature / time information on other sites but many of them suggested higher temperatures and longer times. I figure, why use a higher temp than I need, especially when dealing with wax.

Recycling crayons seems like a great idea for elementary school teachers, if they aren't already doing something like it. Given the scarcity of supplies teachers experience with these days and the abundance of broken crayons they probably end up with, recycling crayons fixes two problems IMO. If I were a teacher doing this project, I'd probably invest in some cheap muffin tins for this. True, the shapes aren't as exciting but teachers have access to a lot more crayons than most of us and really, how much time do they want to spend on this project? Sometimes practicality wins over fancy. Same reason I usually wear flats or tennies when going to the grocery store instead of a fabulous pair of Christian Louboutins or Giuseppe Zanottis.

This also might be a fun project for older kids. I don't feel comfortable yet with hot crafts around my daughter but as she becomes more predictable and has a better understanding of safety, spooning melted crayon into molds could be 15 minutes of entertainment one afternoon. Or less, depending on how little time it takes her to move on to the next big thing...

Update:

I made my first batch of triangle crayons the other day. A couple of notes...

*Don't put the silicone ice cube molds from Ikea in the oven. I thought it would be an easy shortcut since I have silicone cooking pans but they are not the same and the ice cube molds started to smoke. Thankfully, I caught it before there was any damage.

*Different brands of crayons turn out different end product. Crayola works the best, melting quickly and turning out a product that does not leave color on little fingers. Some brands don't melt at all, or at least not in a way that worked easily. I suppose grating would aid in the melting but that takes more time than it's worth for most people.

*Daughter LOVED the triangle shape. Day 3 of hours of play; much more interest than she's ever shown in regular crayons. ...Must.resist.temptation.to.melt.all.crayons...