Home Made Recycled Crayons

Last Christmas we bought Brye one of those Crayola boxes that holds many boxes of crayons.
Freedom decided that it was hers.
What happens when a two year old plays with crayons?
You get an original piece of artwork on your walls and doors ... and a bunch of broken crayons.

Freedom thought that since they were broken, they needed to be thrown away.
During one of her naps, I decided to melt the crayons down into new crayons.

With the oven preheated to 350, I started to peel the crayons.
I broke some of the crayons and grated the rest.
The last time I bought cupcake liners, I bought the kind that had the foil outsides. I kept them for some type of art project. They came in handy!

I left them in the oven just long enough to melt the crayons.

A few things that I learned.

• Don't use "cheap" crayons. They don't seem to mark as well as the Crayola brand crayons.
• Don't grate the crayons. I wanted chunky colours. The grated crayons mixed. While pretty, not the effect I wanted.
• The foil liners that I used made little ridges that had to be knocked off before I could use them.
• That it's really hard to draw with circular crayons.