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:

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

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  2. 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

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  3. 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.

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  4. 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.

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  5. They look fantastic! Thanks as always for sharing :)

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  6. 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?

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  7. 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.

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