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I admit it.

I take after my grandmother.

I have a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde complex. I hate clutter, but I hate to throw useful things away. Even if I know I won’t need them.

Take broken crayons, for example. I’m not so mean that I make my kids use the crayons down to the nub. I do understand that they are hard to color with when they start losing the point. And frugal shopper that I am, I pick up about 10 boxes every August when they’re about 25 cents a pack.

But still, should I just throw them away?

Gasp.

So I finally tried a project that I’ve seen several times over the years. Melting broken crayons and making new big and round crayons.

The first step is the hardest.

You’ve got to peel the crayons. I had my kids help with this step!

Next, arrange the crayon pieces by similar color (you don’t have to do that, but we wanted to) in a mini-muffin pan.

 

Place the pan in the oven at 200 degrees.

The crayons will begin to melt.

After about 15 minutes, they looked like this. We removed the pan and let it cool for a few minutes. Then we put it in the freezer for about an hour. Then we easily slid the crayons out of the pan.

Aren’t they pretty? My kids had fun picking their favorite ones. We all thought that the orange/red ones would be great for coloring fire.

So is there something you have a hard time throwing away? Have you figured out a way to reuse it?


By Kristen H.
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9 thoughts on “Recycling Crayons”

  1. This looks so fun! My son is a stickler about his crayons being pointed and held like a pencil so he wouldn’t go for these big round shapes. But, this would be a neat idea to make them, package them in cello bags with ribbons and give as a little gift! Thanks for sharing!

  2. What a great idea! I tend to be a saver, but have been “reforming” these last couple years by throwing things away. I just recently threw away a bunch of broken crayons – I could just scream! 🙁 I’ll start setting aside the broken ones again.

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