Saturday, November 6, 2010

Recycled Crayons

Inspired by this tutorial on Homemade by Jill, last weekend I bought two enormous bags of used crayons at my local thrift store for about $3.00--and this was what resulted...
My favorite?  The crystals and rocks set you see above--it is the natural history nerd in me.  All in all, those two bags of crayons yielded about 28 sets of molded crayons with 9-10 crayons per set.   Made some tags up and they will be up for sale in my Etsy shop sometime this month--as well as selling some at No Coast.

Of course, this makes it all sound easy--and the melting of crayons and pouring them into molds is simple--but peeling the paper off crayons is pretty damn frustrating and labor-intensive since old used crayons tend to be pretty stuck in their wrappers--but about halfway through Mr Beeper stepped in with an industrial box-cutter and just started slicing all the crayons right out of the wrappers in a fraction of the time like a crayon-shelling ninja (thanks, babycakes!).   I melted all of my crayons in a stainless steel kitchen bowl placed in a pan of boiling water on the stove, and this cleaned up fine with hot water and soap (albeit a little messy).  Just be careful to not get any water in your melted crayons as this will cause them to harden with a grainy texture rather than being all shiny and happy and new looking.   And in case you were wondering, all of my molds came from Bake It Pretty (about $2 apiece). 

I highly recommend this--especially if you can find old used crayons since it is an awesome way to recycle unloved crayons (if you cannot find any at your thrift store, ask friends--who does not have a stash of these?--I admit I raided some of Beeper's older fat crayons he longer uses to add to the pile).  Beeper loves them and has already selected a set of the animal crayons for himself.  And me, I am already thinking about the future valentine's favors that might result...or who might appreciate these for Christmas amongst the little people I know. 

8 comments:

zinkwazi said...

Awesome idea! thanks :)

Caroline said...

I love these! I've seen recycled crayons but never in fun molds like these! I'll have to give these a try soon.

cArLa said...

they turned out great! thanks for sharing this. btw, if you ever need someone to help you peel the paper off the crayons, i volunteer my 3 yr old he LOVES peeling them! LOL

Kimberly Danielle Furstenberg said...

Do these color okay? I had a friend make some before and they wouldn't make marks on the paper. She might have gotten the water in them or something though. Anyway, they look really cute.

Holly said...

Kimberly--these do color fine. In fact, it was hard to photograph them on a white background because any time I would nudge them I would get little marks on the paper they sat on. Not sure what happened with your friend's crayons--perhaps she over-heated them and the pigments and wax broke down...or maybe getting water in the crayons while heating them? I did get some water in some of mine but never did try to color with them--just threw those out because they did not look all pretty and glossy like the others.

I would give it a try if you interested. I thought it worked really well.

Jenny Citino said...

They look fantastic! Thanks as always for sharing :)

Teryn said...

I love these! But I'm still trying to track down some molds. I went to the site you linked to but I still can't find them. Are they gone or am I just missing them somehow?

Holly said...

Teryn--here is a link to where the molds are at Bake It Pretty: http://www.bakeitpretty.com/category_87/ALL-CHOCOLATE-MOLDS.htm

Looks like there are several on sale too...happy crayon making.