one of the favors

I have been having a lot of fun planning things for Owen's party and getting a few things started. I of course won't show you the finished products until his big day, but here's one project that I was working on this weekend. These are going to be part of the kids favors at the party.

I have fond memories of melting crayons when was young and then again in my classroom. Did you ever take crayon shavings and melt them between sheets of wax paper to make stained glass?  Fun times. Anywho, back to this project.  The end goal was crayons in the shape of O's (for Owen in case you couldn't figure that out).  Now as a teacher I have a special place in my heart for Crayola crayons. Nothing beats them color and durability wise. But I will warn you that those darn wrappers are hard to get off. Cheaper crayons definitely work faster and easier for this project.

Supplies needed:
Tons of crayons
Molds of any kind
Heat source (ie stove)
Small pan
Things to stir with that you don't mind throwing away.  (I used cheap wooden kabob sticks I had in a drawer)
Water

Since I'm on a super tight budget I went on the hunt for cheap crayons. I got 5 huge boxes of crayons at the I.D.E.A. Store for $1, total.  Then while I was at the Habitat Restore looking for jars for another project I came across a mold set for Tic Tac Toe.  It had x's and o's!  Just the o's please. :) $1 again.  So my cost for this project has been around $2.  Woohoo!

 

Steps:

1. Unwrap all the crayons.  My mom found a secret.  Find the place where the wrapper is glued together.  On the exact opposite side (usually right where the name of the crayon is), run a knife or razor blade down the wrapper and it should come right off. (again, you might have a little more trouble if they're Crayola crayons).

2. Get your cans ready.  I used mandarin orange cans to begin with, but then changed to pop cans cut in half.  The pop cans didn't get nearly as hot, so I could hold them without an oven mit for better pouring.  And I could bend a little pouring spout into them.
3. Sort your crayons into like colors to prepare for melting.  You can really mix colors here and it won't matter.  The darkest crayon or the crayon you have the most of will be the color it all melts down to.  So don't worry about mixing your different pinks/reds for example:

4. Put about an inch or so of water into a small pan.  Put one or 2 cans filled with your crayons.  Stir occasionally until melted.  Be very careful not to let water get into the can!  This happened to me and I'll spare you the details, but now no one's getting brown crayons.

5. Pour the melted wax into your molds.  Don't worry about overflows, the excess will chip right off.  And the nice thing about wax is that it's easy to clean up.  The trick is to let it harden on any surface you spill it on.  If you're having trouble getting your molds clean (which I really didn't) you can pop them in the freezer to harden the wax even better for easier cleaning.  Also, if you really mess up, you can always remelt them and try again!

6. Let cool for about an hour.  Pop out of molds and color! 

*ETA: here's the final product from the party.  To find out what I used for the coloring page, click here.