Have any of you seen this new Crayola product?
It's called the Crayola Crayon Maker (creative name, huh?) and retails for anywhere from $30-$60 dollars online. It's based on the really cool idea of melting down old busted crayons to make new swirly colored ones. YOU DON'T NEED TO BUY A MACHINE FOR THAT! And, heavens to Betsy, don't pay $60 for one. Criminee.
You can achieve the same effect for no more than $3.50. For reals. With this tutorial you can either make really cool stocking stuffers, or you can give the materials and the instructions together as a gift.
To make swirly crayons, you will need:
silicon baking tray*
dollar store pack of 48 crayons
oven
*Target currenly has silicon muffin tins in their Dollar Spot for $2.50. I bought both the snowflake mold and the snowman head mold. You can also just use a plain muffin pan and save yourself that money.
First, you will need to tear the paper off of all of the crayons. If you are doing this project with a kiddo, these first steps are one you can delegate to him.
After all the papers are off, decide whether you would like to have multi-tonal crayons or not. I chose to separate the crayons by color group because my little guy is beginning to learn his colors, and I didn't want to confuse him.
Break the crayons into pieces. The smaller the pieces, the more the colors will blend. I left my pieces a little bigger so you could still see the individual colors within each crayon.
Put the broken crayons in the muffin molds, and bake in the oven at 200 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. If you are using fewer crayon pieces per mold, it will take less time to melt them.
Take the pan out of the oven. BE CAREFUL! That's hot wax you've got there. Let the wax cool completely before trying to remove them from the molds. If you are using the silicon pans, removing the crayons is super easy, since you can just pop them right out.
Aren't they pretty? These crayons are a really great size for little hands. My little guy loves them and gets mad at me if I try to give him regular old crayons now.
Like I said, you could easily package up a box of crayons, the silicon pan, and these directions and give the whole kit and kaboodle as a Christmas gift. Or, you could whip up about a dozen batches of snowflake crayons and give them as little presents or stocking stuffers.
If you are going to use them as stocking stuffers, when you take them out of the molds, rub the bottoms of the crayons on some paper to smooth them out. The wax will creep up the sides of the mold when you melt them which makes for an uneven surface. Rubbing that wax will make them easier to stack.
Then you can just use curling ribbon to tie the crayons all together. They are so colorful, why waste money on hiding them with wrapping paper! To recap: $1 for crayons, $2.50 (or nothing) for the muffin pan, and $0.01 for curling ribbon. OR $60 for a machine and $4 for a big, old gift bag to wrap it in.
I'm confident you will make the right choice. :P
