Making Crayons

crayons

I've seen this idea in a number of books and wanted to try it. Yesterday, my friend Renee referred to the idea in her blog. Wanting to do something special with the girls during our week of 'vacation', I decided this was the week to try.

It's a fairly simple project. Find all your broken crayons and peel off the remaining paper (this was the hardest part). Line a baking pan with aluminum foil. Put in a 350 pre-heated oven for 10 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes. Pull out the wax block, and use cookie cutters and make fun shaped multi-colored crayons.

Things that I learned in the process... black and brown colored wax seems to 'float'. So, when we pulled our wax out of the oven it looked like a brownish swampy mess. When we cut the cooled wax the undersides were much more interesting. In spite of my carefullest lining of my baking pan it still poured into the pan... I don't think I'll be able to make brownies in the pan again, and I'm not sure how I'll be able ever clean them. So use caution in choosing your pan and tools, because they may forever more be destined for crayon making.

As I'm typing, I'm also wondering if I can morph this technique for candles and other treats... especially since I've apparently got some new 'designated tools'.