How to Melt Old Crayons and Make New Swirled Crayons
- 1). Gather the kids' old and broken crayons. Remove the paper from the crayons and break them into small chunks.
- 2). Separate the crayons by color groups and place them in paper cups. For example, place all the red and pink crayons into one cup, all the shades of blue crayons into another cup, greens into a separate cup, etc.
- 3). Place the paper cups of crayons into the microwave and melt them. Heat the crayons for one minute at a time. After every minute of microwaving the crayons, check to see how they are melting, and swirl or stir the crayons with a plastic spoon. Do not overheat the crayons because they may put off toxic or irritating fumes.
- 4). Pour the melted crayons into silicone molds, ice cube trays, or any other containers you have available. Silicone molds are especially nice because the new crayons are easy to pop out of the molds, and you can buy them in a variety of fun shapes. Pour each color group into the mold slowly. Otherwise, the colors will mix together completely. To make layered crayons, pour one color, let it cool, and then pour the next color. You can repeat this process until you have several layers of colors.
- 5). Cool the new swirled and layered crayons in the freezer for 15 minutes. When the crayons have completely cooled and solidified pop them out of the molds and enjoy!