Making Crayons for Toddlers

So majority of us have seen on Pinterest and beyond how we can take broken crayons and melt them into new crayons.  But how many of you have actually tried it?  Well I did... Just for fun.

My son wants to color when my daughter does, but then the crayon easily finds its way into his mouth and I take it away and of course he becomes upset.  I try to look for any and all small broken pieces each time to ensure he isn't letting his curiosity get him into trouble, but I hate to throw out crayons that still have potential that my daughter is using.  I know I can buy larger, thickers crayons for him, but he also likes to use what big sister is using.  So when a Pinterest find showed a possible solution, why not give it a try?  While you see many bloggers make cute shapes like hearts and stars, I was looking to make a large basic crayon that works for a curious toddler.

Thanks to Intimate Weddings, they had easy instructions and great pictures to go along.  Because of this, I am not going to put all the steps or pictures as well.  In their case, they were making them for favors at a wedding or for the children's table, but for me, I just wanted to make a giant crayon that my son could not put in his mouth all at once.

I used a large muffin pan like theirs, and because of my OCD tendencies, I did not group or mix a hundred different colors into each hole.  I grouped them generically - reds, blues, greens, etc.

I set the oven to 250 degrees, but quickly learned that is not hot enough for melting them in this size pan and with that many crayons per hole.  I found 275 degrees worked much better for me and I melted them for about 12 minutes, keeping a close eye the entire time.

Once I removed them, I let them cool for a bit and then placed them into the freezer.  In my opinion, that was a mistake I made, as a few of mine cracked.  My other mistake was that I did not make them thick enough.  While I had a lot of little pieces to use, I did not have enough of each color grouping to make them thick.  In the end, I found mine way too thin for a one-year old, who will surely drop them on the tile.

So I took the newly formed crayons that I had made, put them back in the tray and this time, I placed one color on the bottom but a different color on top.  For example, I put the yellow crayons wafer back into the muffin pan and then put the green wafer on top, so they would melt together into a thicker crayon.  I figured that this will make them super thick.

Again, 275 for about 12 minutes.  This worked perfectly.  Cooled them first and then used the refrigerator instead. Here are some photos of my super thick crayons that are easy for my one year old son to grasp and use, plus when they hit the floor they don't crack!

I hope you find this helpful if you have a small one that wants to color like the big kids, but also has those everything-goes-in-the-mouth and butter-finger tendencies.  Even my daughter liked using these, as I rolled out a large piece of paper on the floor and let them color to their hearts content.
So next time you have those small chunks of random crayons, give them a second chance and try melting your own!