Five Fun Things to Do with Old Broken Crayons

We recently found ourselves with the remains of many crayons from times gone by and went looking for ideas for things to do with all the stumpy remnants. 

Here are some ideas. For all of these, you will have to peel the paper off the outside of the crayon first.

1) With Eskom loadshedding you can never have too many candles. Our attempt at this was a bit of an aesthetic fail but Noodle loves her new candle. 

Peel the paper, divide into different colours and then melt down individual colours to make candles by pouring one colour at a time into an old jar (we used an old mayonnaise jar). Be sure to melt one colour at a time and let it cool as our colours mixed to make a giant pool of brown.

This is what it should look like (this is not what mine looked like): 

Picture courtesy of: http://adventures-in-making.com/diy-crayon-candles/

2) Heat up some rocks in the oven and then draw on the crayon (be careful with young children that this is hot enough to melt the crayon but not burn them). I have not done this one yet with my kids, but have gathered some rocks and hope to post the results when done.

See how here:

http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/26914/melted-crayon-art-using-hot-rocks

3)  Melt the crayons and place into silicone moulds to create fun, shaped crayons- like our little stars below.

4) Shave bits of crayon, pres between two sheets of paper and iron to create an abstract masterpiece. 

5) Tape a row of crayons to your canvas. Hold upright and heat with a hairdryer until it melts to create a beautiful creation. Example here (also on our to-do list):

http://blog.admissions.ucla.edu/tag/crayon-art/