What to do with broken crayons....Crayon Art

There is something that every family has in common. No matter how well we keep our houses up, no matter how good we think our kids play, no matter how well the toys stay organized....there are always broken crayons hiding somewhere. We all have them....ya know you do! Just like you know that it's inevitable, that at some point of your couches life, it WILL eat your change! I used to constantly pick up the broken crayons and throw them away. I used to get so mad at the kids for purposely breaking them! At one point I even stopped buying crayons. Last year, I changed my thinking. I would re-use the broken crayons. I welcomed them {secretly}. I started collecting them! I put them in a basket where the kids wouldn't see them, because I just know my kids. I would be picking them up again....and again, and probably again, if they knew where they were. I also didn't tell them what I wanted to do with them or they would ask me 20 times a day if it's time! I was able to get quite a bit together! Is this amount that I collected normal? So maybe not every family would find so many. I guess I would rather have my couch eat more change, but broken crayons is what we get!

A few weeks ago, the kids were crazy bored, and needed a project. What do you do to keep 2 kids occupied for hours? Have them take paper off of crayons!

Now that is what I am talking about! Peace and quiet! I remember sitting them on the couch and thinking that I could get so much work done. The baby was napping, the dog was napping, and the 2 of them were excited...and quiet!! Why didn't I do this sooner?? 

Notice that her eyes have found the tv! It's only minutes now until she quits! (He followed soon after). I'm pretty sure it wasn't even 15 minutes, before they were complaining of their nails hurting from ripping the paper off, and yelling at each other about whose crayons were whose. I found myself spending the next hour or so taking off the paper myself, while the kids played outside.  

The Crayola's were much harder to get off. Carefully slice the paper  longways with a razor. It will make your job SO much easier!

I thought I would never finish! More just kept appearing!

Now your ready to start making your new crayons!

Put the pile into a trash bag or you can place them in between wax paper, and using a hammer or a rolling pin make the pieces smaller.

Make sure to spray the tins with cooking spray before you put the crayons in. 

Make sure that there is no paper in the tins before you place them in the oven. I did take out the paper in the photo above, apparently just not before snapping the photo :) 

Heat the oven. I'm not sure if there is a correct temperature to set the oven to, there probably is, but I think I set it to 375. If you've done this before, let me know if I'm wrong. Heat until melted. When you check on them, you'll see chunks if they aren't ready. They will liquefy completely.

I kept them in the fridge for a couple of hours. Once they cooled, they kind of all sunk in the middle, and looked milky like. See the photo below. I got a bit worried thinking that they became a gross color. 

I banged them on the counter just to loosen them, and they slid right out. Look how pretty they are now!! Phew...it wasn't a waste of time after all!

You can obviously choose to keep all of the colors the same to make solid colors, but I love the rainbow (and I didn't want to take the extra time). I love that the crayon (dust) left speckled patters throughout!

The idea was to make these for the kids {of course}....

but once they were finished, I thought they would make great art! I kinda had to bribe them to let me have them. I only had 1 new canvas left, and it didn't seem fair to clean up and save take their crayons, make them work so hard for 15 minutes all of that time peeling the paper, to not let them keep them! So I gave them a couple canvas' that I had used for nothing special. Covered the table with a drop cloth, and let them go to town making their own art! This is what I came up with....

I painted the canvas and glued the crayons on with Tacky Glue. For obvious reasons...don't use hot glue ;) And this is what they came up with....

I think all 3 turned out great! Don't you?? It was a fun afternoon!

Have you recycled crayons before? Have you used them for anything other than coloring? I'd love to see! Thanks for coming by today. If you liked this post, I'd love it if you'd take a quick sec to vote below, and click the G+share!

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