Project: Recycled Crayons

I have seen a lot of people making recycled crayons lately and since I live in a household with two small children we have broken crayons everywhere. I had read this tutorial about it here a few months ago and bought a package of star cake tins and so late tonight I randomly decided that it would be a fun quick project.

Here they are waiting to go into the oven. Did I mention that my husband was on the computer and I couldn't go and check the directions, oh well, I can remember something I read briefly a couple of months ago, right? So I preheat the oven to 250 (note that the tutorial says 150, I was only 100 degrees off) and pop them in. After waiting a few minutes to make sure they weren't going to burst into flames or something I wandered off to watch TV. About 10 minutes later I went to check on them and I had crayon soup, not the variegated crayons I had expected. A little defeated I take a shower while I wait for them to cool. The backs are a solid color and not looking very exciting. After they cooled I pulled them out of the tins, the front side looks cool and the good thing is the only way you can really screw this up is if they do burst into flames in you oven.

I know that they will be enjoyed by my kids, they are big and easy to handle, and have no idea what they were supposed to look like. I will definitely make these again (I do have a coffee tin full of broken crayons and my mother still has a container full from when I was a kid) and bake them at a lower temperature and see if they look more like I expected. I think they would be a popular item at a craft show and they would make great gifts or favors.