A month back, I posted about the rupee crayon party favors we made for the kiddo's Zelda birthday party. Big success! But, I did have leftovers. Both leftover rupees, and some leftover old crayons. So I decided to take some of the leftovers and recycle them again, this time into a little treat for the kiddo's Easter basket. (Should we call it tri-cycling? Or re-recycling?)
Easter egg crayons are pretty simple to make, if you have one of these Jello egg molds. Mine is a few years old (so it looks different from the one I've linked to), and the eggs come out with a patterns instead of being smooth. And of course, you should plan on retiring your mold from food use after using it for crayon eggs. FYI.
The process is slightly different from making the rupee crayons, because that was an open mold, and this one is closed. I could still have pushed crayon bits into the hole, but it would have been harder to get the entire mold filled to the top.
So I improvised a double boiler for the microwave. You can see the glass jar in the background there.
I put the crayons (broken into pieces) into the jar, then placed the jar into a bowl of water about two inches deep. The whole thing went into the microwave. Note: I've had good success with this method and have never been injured, but microwaves can cause hot spots, fires and occasional water eruptions. Please proceed knowing these risks, and remember: the crayons might be for kids, but this project is not. (In fact, if you have a standard double boiler you can use exclusively for crafts or candles, I'd recommend that over the microwave method any day.)
Once the wax was melted completely, I carefully poured it from the jar into the molds (using a silicon hot mitt to hold the hot jar). After letting it cool for a couple of hours, the mold popped right open, and the crayon came right out.
You might need to babysit your project a little. Wax contracts a little as it cools, so you may need to fill in your mold a little more to prevent hollow spots.
Once the crayons are out of the mold, they'll have little stumps.
If you leave them intact, the eggs won't fit into an unmodified egg carton. Luckily, the stumps are easy to remove with a serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion. Then, you can smooth the cuts by rubbing on a hot piece of aluminum foil.
Done at last, you can package them in an egg carton and stick them in the Easter basket!
Like a lot of the projects I do, this one is very versatile. You can make crayon hearts for Valentine's Day (I've seen them all over Pinterest), crayon shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day. You can find a Lego figure mold and make party favors for a Lego party. Think outside the (crayon) box!
(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)
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Gorgeous! Do they work as well as regular crayons?
ReplyDeleteThese are awesome for crayon rubbings and coloring large areas . . . also, as you might imagine, they're great for little hands that love to scribble. But not so good for fine details.
ReplyDeleteThese turned out great. I like the stumpy version as well. :)
ReplyDeleteI'll have to try this next year!
ReplyDeleteWe've made the heart versions many times, but I never thought about trying eggs! Great idea.