CRAFT TUTORIAL: Making New Crayons from Old, Broken Crayons!

Posted by Crystal

Thank you to the 40 or so people who attended craftLAB on December 5, 2010 at The Lunch Studio!  We all had a great time upcycling old, broken crayons into new crayons in a variety of holiday shapes.

A lot of families wanted to make more crayons at home, so we are posting a craft tutorial to remind everyone of the steps.  Enjoy!

Making Crayons

Materials/Tools:
1) Old, Broken Crayons
2) Microwave Safe Plastic Containers
3) Microwave
4) Plastic Spoons
5) Candy Molds
6) Small Trays
7) Freezer

Step 1: Sort out all of the non-Crayola crayons into a separate container and set them aside.  We recommend that you only use Crayola crayons because they melt much better.  Make sure you have a lot of old, broken crayons!

Step 2: Sort your Crayola crayons by color and peel off all of the labels.  Brake the crayons into pieces about an inch long and put them in microwave safe plastic containers with lids.  Lunch meat containers are perfect and cheap.  Also, save the label peelings for a future craft project!

Step 3: When sorting and peeling the labels off your Crayola crayons, be sure to group like colors together.  It's fine if there are a variety of shades of the same color mixed together such as light green and dark green.  They will all melt together nicely into a medium/dark green.  If you specifically want a light color crayon, only melt light colors together.

Step 4: Microwave one color container with crayons about an inch deep for 5 minutes.  Use a plastic spoon to stir the melted crayons.  If necessary, microwave for another few minutes until most of the crayons are melted.  Use the spoon to hold back any unmelted crayons and pour the liquid crayon wax into a candy mold that is sitting on a small tray for stability. 

CAUTION: The liquid crayon wax is very hot, so an adult should do the pouring!

Step 5: Put the tray with the candy mold in the freezer for about 15 minutes.  Take the mold out the the freezer and the crayons should easily pop right out.  Now, you have brand new crayons! 

You can leave all of the melted and peeled crayons in the microwave safe containers.  Toss the color-coordinated spoon into the container and pop on the lid for easy storage until you want to make more crayons!

NOTE: Melted crayon wax can stain, so be sure to protect your table and clothes.

If you have old, broken crayons that you would like to donate to Flint Handmade for a future crayon-making workshop, just bring them to any Flint Handmade event or drop them off at The Lunch Studio!

I am the Leslie Knope of Craft...

Posted by Crystal

Confessional Time:  I am a nerdy birdie county parks junkie.  I love, love, love that there are so many parks and nature preserves in Genesee County.  I go absolutely bonkers when I see deer or rabbits or other woodland creatures in nature.  I don't know why.  I just do.  :shrugs:

So, when Genesee County Parks and Recreation invited Flint Handmade to host a craft workshop for their summer programming, I was like, "HECK YEAH!"  This, of course, prompted a ton of Leslie Knope jokes at my expense from my fellow FH committee members.  Thanks, girls!  :P

We decided to go with a 2-part family-friendly upcycling series.  At our first workshop, we taught kids and their parents how to make chip bag wrapper chains that we turned into bracelets.  We learned this awesome skill from Mercedea at The Flint Public Library who created an upcycling info page on the FPL website. 

Michelle uses the rotary cutter to cut chip bags into strips while A'lasia (l) and Megan look on.

Katie from Genesee County Parks became an expert at the wrapper chain...by the end of the workshop, her chain was so long that she made a tiara!

All of the kids show off their awesome chip bag bracelets!  Bottom row (l-r): A'lasia, Derrick, Malik, Megan.  Middle row (l-r): Kai, Tenajia, Madie.  Top row: Me.

At our second Genesee County Parks workshop, we are going to make no sew duct tape bags which we also made at the June 2010 craftLAB.  Feel free to join us at Davison Roadside Park on Wednesday, July 28 from 7pm-8:30pm if you would like to make a bag!