Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Earth Day Crayons

Happy Earth Day! Want to do a fun and easy project with the kiddos to show your appreciation for Big Mama Earth? Forget the tin can pencil holders and the t-shirt grocery bags and go straight to your art supplies. Gather all those broken and unused white, blue, and green crayons, a muffin tin, and make some mini-globe crayons! Today's post comes courtesy of TheGunnySack and would be great if you're an art teacher, an environmentalist, or maybe even a mom who doesn't want to spend more money on crayons!

Start by preheating your oven to 250 degrees. Next, take off all the wrappers on your crayons. The more you have, the more globes you can make!


Next, either break or cut them into pieces and put them in your muffin tin. If you put the white pieces in first, the "clouds" will appear on the top when you flip them over.


Stick the muffin tin in the oven and give them 15-20 minutes (or until the crayons have melted). Be careful removing the tin from the oven, as you don't want to jostle the colors too much.


Let the wax cool on the counter before removing them from the tins (I gave them about 30 minutes, just to be safe). Now maybe the original post had magical muffin tins that just let the globes fall right now but I needed a knife to cut all the way around and when that didn't work, I ended up cutting down the middle in order to get them out! So please, for your sanity's sake, use parchment paper or PAM or something to help get them out easier. Unless you have magical muffin tins.


But there you have it folks, your very own globe crayons!




TOTAL COSTS: Free!
Assuming you have crayons and a muffin tin

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 50 minutes
5 minutes to unwrap crayons and cut into pieces
15 minutes to melt wax
30 minutes to let cool

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
This is something the kids could get involved in (assuming you don't let them cut the crayons with a knife). Have them break up the crayons, place however they want in the muffin tins, and draw to their heart's content!

2 comments:

  1. The key to getting them out easily is to use the silicon baking molds. Since they flex you can pop the crayons right out!

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    Replies
    1. Oooo that's a great idea! Thanks for the tip!

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