Reuse Old or Broken Crayons To Make “Crayon Cookies” At Home!
Don’t throw out those old crayons! Make beautiful “new” crayons out of the old nubs that nobody wants to use anymore. These crayon cookies are also a great chubby size for younger children to hold and use.
Materials:
- Old crayon nubs
- Metal cupcake tin: Find a used one at the thrift store and spare your good cookware
- Lots of fingers for peeling the wrappers from the nubs
- Oven
- Adult help for oven use
What to do:
- Peel all of those crayons! It’s a lot of work and might be hard for tiny fingers. If you plan ahead, you can peel a good handful every day in the days leading up to your activity.
- Have an adult preheat the oven to 300°F.
- Fill the cupcake tin cups at least halfway with whatever colors you want. This is a good time to think about how colors mix and change. You may not want red and green mixing to make brown and maybe you do
- With adult help, put the tin into the oven. You may want to place foil under the tin in case of spills.
- Let the crayons melt slowly. This could take about 10-15 minutes or more. Melting them too hot, too fast will make the colors mix more thoroughly. Melting them slowly will allow the crayons to remain somewhat separated as they melt. This will make the crayons have a different colored streaking effect when used. If greater mixing of colors is desired, have an adult help mix the melted wax with a toothpick.
- When the crayons look completely melted, take them out of the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before putting the tin in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes to cool and harden completely.
- When they are cool and hardened, the crayon cookies are done and ready to use. Just pop them out of the tray and start coloring!
Here are a couple of ideas:
Place drawing paper over various textures and rub away. Use coins, leaves, benches, trees, sidewalks, raised letters on signage, anything that you think will make a cool pattern.
By changing sides of the crayons, you will get different colors almost every time!
What are you going to color?