Recycled Crayons

I have wanted to do this project for a long time and it seems like every craft blog has their own take on how to do it. I decided to try two different techniques; the bake in the oven method and the candy mold method.The first step is the same for both- gather all the broken crayons in the house and take the paper off. It is much easier and less frustrating for you and your helpers if you take a craft knife and slit the paper down the side first.
OVEN METHOD
We pre-heated the oven to 275 degrees F and proceeded to fill a mini-shape silicon pan with bits of different coloured crayons. It was baked for about 20 minutes.Then the melted crayon was gently swirled, once around, with a skewer and left to cool. After the crayons cooled to room temperature, they popped straight out. The only issue I had was that there was a thin layer of clear wax that accumulated at the top. We mixed brands and quality of crayons do vary so perhaps this would not have been an issue with only top brands. They worked great though. I have also heard of using muffin pans with and/or without foil cupcake liners.
CANDY MOLD METHOD
First, we separated the different colours into baby food jars.Then, one jar at a time, we microwaved a color until melted. I found starting with 1 minute, then stirring with a bamboo skewer and repeating every 30 seconds to be the best way to do this.When the colour was completely melted, it was carefully poured into a cheap, plastic candy mold and the whole process was repeated until the mold was full. I liked the star mold because I thought the points of the stars would be good for colouring.
The mold was then placed in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. When the crayon was cool and set, they were easily removed from the mold by turning it over and lightly tapping. This was so easy and everything turned out perfectly.Other ideas I found but did not try included: Creating a double-boiler to melt the crayons using cleaned tin cans and a pot of boiling water, heating the crayons in the oven separating colours into cupcake liners and then pouring the melted wax into the molds, and my favourite (a must-do for next time) creating layered crayons by pouring in just a bit of a colour and letting it harden; then repeating the process until you have all the layers you want. So cute. If you want more there are a couple lovely tutorials to check out here and here. Have fun creating!