create (with kids): molded crayons

Lots of our crayons have been making their way into the bag of brokenness these days. You know, that bag with all the tiny bits of broken crayons that are too tiny for little fingers to hold. They were the overlooked crayons, but no longer...

The first step to breathing new life into your little crayon pieces is to remove all pieces of paper from them and assemble them in a ziploc bag. (If you reuse bags like us, then this is a great last hurrah for those end-of-the-road bags.) Seal well, making sure there's not a lot of extra air in the bag, then let your little ones pound on the bag. We used a wooden toy mallet but you could also use a rolling pin, shoe, hairbrush, hammer, etc. Feel free to jump on the bag for good measure (wink).

Place your silicone mold on a cookie sheet and fill with the crayon pieces. (You'll notice that our mold is  not on a cookie sheet so we had to transfer it- not impossible, but save yourself a step and learn from us.) If you want to use this cookie sheet again for baking purposes, consider wrapping it in foil first because inevitably little crayon pieces end up melted on it.

Place them in a preheated 250 oven and let them bake for about ten minutes. Watch them closely, as soon as they've melted you'll want to take them out and let them cool.

Once they're completely cool, remove them from the molds. Aren't they pretty? I was amazed at how well they picked up the details from the mold, and they color really nicely too. They've gone from being overlooked to one of our first coloring choices around here- that's a pretty neat transformation!