5 Crafts You Can Do Using Broken Crayons

Young children often love to color, but since they are still developing their hand-eye coordination they sometimes end up pressing down too hard on their crayons, accidentally breaking them.  Most parents hate to throw the broken pieces away, and instead end up tossing them into a bucket so the kids can still use them.  However, after a while it may seem like your collection of broken crayons is a little bit too big.  When that’s the case, check out these crafts you can do with them.

1. Marbled crayon shapes- Purchase a silicon ice cube tray at the dollar store or other discount center.  These silicon trays come in a range of shapes, so allow the kids to pick their favorite one.  Once the silicon trays are used for this project you should not use them for ice cubes again.  Have the kids tear off the paper from all of the broken crayons.  The crayons should be broken into 1 inch pieces.  Place the silicon ice cube tray onto a foil lined cookie sheet.  Place the broken bits of crayons into the ice cube tray.  Try not to mix more than 3 colors together in each cube space or the result could end up being a muddy brown mess.  When the tray is full put it into the oven at 300 degrees F for 10 minutes.  If the crayons are not completely melted after 10 minutes, put them back in and check on them every couple of minutes until they’ve melted entirely.  Once melted, remove the sheet from the oven and allow the crayons to cool and harden completely before removing from the ice cube tray.
2. Fall leaves or flowers- Create crayon shavings using a basic pencil sharpener.  Keep the shavings in cupcake papers to avoid mixing up the colors and creating a mess.  You will need a lot of shavings for this project.  Tear off a sheet of waxed paper about 36 inches long.  Fold it in half.  Open it back up and have the kids put piles of crayon shavings all over the waxed paper.  Keeping the piles the same color will allow them to show through in the final project and not mix together.  Fold the waxed paper back over the shavings.  Top the waxed paper with foil and then iron with a warm iron.  Keep checking until the crayons are completely melted.  Allow the waxed paper to cook for a few minutes and then let the kids cut out leaves and flower shapes to use as window art.
3. Dressed up pillar candles- Unwrap all of the broken crayons and put them into a clean, tall, thin metal can – eggnog cans work well for this.  Bring a pot full of water to a boil.  Once boiling, remove the pot from the heat and add the can full of crayons to the water to melt them.  Be patient and do not stir as the colors will blend and turn to a muddy color.  In the meantime, lay out some newspaper.  Next, hold onto the wick of a white pillar candle and dip it into the melted crayons.  When you remove it the pillar will be very colorful.  Hold the pillar over the can to allow any excess to drip off, then set it aside on the newspaper until the wax sets while you dip other candles.
4. Sandy pics- Pick up some sheets of sand paper at the dollar store or use some you have around the house.  Have the kids color pictures on the sandpaper using the broken crayons and tell them to push hard.  Place the finished sandpaper artwork onto foil-lined cookie sheets and place them in the oven at 225 degrees F, allowing the wax to melt into the crevices of the sand paper.  It should only take about 5 minutes so keep an eye on it.
5. Melted crayon artwork- You will need a blank canvas of any size, some broken crayons still in their papers, some hot glue and an embossing gun.  Hot glue good-sized crayon pieces still in their paper to the canvas.  To get the longest area to melt it’s best to glue them to the top quarter of the canvas.  Once the crayons are hot glued on you can turn on an embossing gun and start melting the crayons.  Stand the canvas up and lean it slightly back so that the melted wax stays on the canvas.  As you work you will figure out how best to hold the gun and how to manipulate the melting wax.  The embossing gun doesn’t get hot enough to melt the hot glue so the crayons do not fall off, they just melt and the colors run down the canvas.  Bright colors work best for this, but any colors you like will work.

The next time your child breaks a crayon, don’t sweat it.  Just toss it in the bucket until you have enough crayons to make a crayon craft.

Thank you Paul for sharing :)