These gorgeous crayons make a great alternative Easter gift & are so frugal to make.
We collected a selection of broken crayons & grouped them into pots of similar colours. We then cleaned them & removed any colours from other crayons by running a vegetable peeler around the sides. We kept the coloured crayon shavings for another activity we'll share here soon.
Once 'cleaned' & sorted, we placed the crayons into glass jars & added them to a shallow pan of water.
We started to warm them on a gentle medium heat & slowly, they started to melt. Slow is the key here, don't be tempted to turn the heat up as the wax could burn. We heated no more than 3 pots at a time, & they took 5-10 minutes to melt completely. We used wooden skewers to help stir the melting crayons, & once the crayons had turned to liquid, we were ready to pour them into our moulds.
Before handling the warm wax we made sure our moulds were close by so we didn't have to carry the containers far. We used silicone chocolate moulds that we picked up from a 99p Store, but most stores have these ice cube/chocolate moulds available.
I used tongs to remove the jars from the hot pan & dried the bases on a towel. The jar was cool enough for me to handle & I was able to carefully pour the melted wax into the moulds.
We left to dry for 30 mins & then our crayons were ready to use!
We picked up some secondhand plastic eggs & filled them with a few crayons to give to friends as Easter gifts. Such a great alternative to sweet treats.
And check out these little brown crayon bunnies, so cute! Obviously, if you're giving these to very young children, you'd need to explain they're not edible!
We've loved making these upcycled crayons, & the fact we only had to pay for the moulds (99p) was a bonus too! I'll never be throwing those old broken crayons out again.
Why not share a little colour with these crayons this Easter? Who knows what creativity you'll inspire.