How to Form New Crayons

Recycle broken crayons into cool new crayons.

Don't throw away all those broken crayons at the bottom of your child's crayon box. Keep them and make new crayons out of them. This is a fun way to teach kids about recycling and repurposing items, plus they get some funky new crayons out of it. Use crayons of same shades to make new crayons, or mix up crayon colors for crazy swirled crayons.

Things You'll Need

• Broken crayon pieces
• Cooking spray
• Muffin tins, large or small
• Toothpicks
• Spoon

Instructions

1. Gather all the broken crayons and peel away the paper from them. Break them even further to create smaller pieces of crayons that will fit into the muffin tins.

2. Grease the muffin pans with cooking spray and fill them with the broken crayons. Group like color families together. To make rainbow crayons, you'll get better results if you melt like colors separately, and use a spoon to layer different colors in separate molds or tins, then allow them to cool.

3. Turn the oven on to 275 degrees Fahrenheit and bake the crayons for eight minutes or until they are melted.

4. Stir the melted crayons with a toothpick to mix up the colors.

5. Allow the crayons to cool for a few minutes, then place the tins in the freezer for 20 minutes to complete the hardening of the new crayons. Pop the crayons out of the tins and get ready to color with new crayons.

Tips & Warnings

• New crayons can also be made in candy molds, silicon baking molds, ice cube trays and by using cookie cutters to form the crayons.

• If you don't want to use the oven, melt crayons in the microwave using paper cups, then pour them into molds to harden.

References

• Make And Takes: Recycled Chunky Crayons; Marie LeBaron
• Kaboose: Recycled Crayons
• Chica And Jo: Recycle Broken Crayons Into Fun New Shapes

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish