Blog 3 1 19 How to Make Recycled Crayons

How to Make Recycled Crayons

We are always looking for ways to give back to our community. It’s one of our favorite things to do. We have a whole Project named after giving back. One of our first GiveBack endeavors was making crayons.

You see, some of our Customers have limited mobility in their hands...and they were once children with that same limited mobility. Additionally, we all knew or have known a child in the hospital. All the IVs (and often accompanying splints) make it difficult for those kids to grasp a skinny little crayon. Thicker, smaller, shaped crayons would be so much easier to use. And the shapes made them even more fun to use.

First we tried to make multicolored crayons. They were certainly fun...but they weren’t practical when you really wanted to color a picture with the right color at the right time. So we started making single color crayons.

At this point we partnered with Shriner’s Hospital in St Louis, Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital, and St Louis Crisis Nursery. We provided each with crayons for different holidays. Since then, donation requirements have changed for those two hospitals, so our donations have decreased. But that’s just a bonus for other organizations and St Louis Crisis Nursery because Team:Colors has no intention of slowing their production.

So how do we make them? Read on below for step by step directions.

Gather your old, used, and broken crayons.

Peel off all the labels. Every piece of paper needs to me gone.

Sort the crayons by color.

Using a glass or metal container, melt the crayons. You can use the microwave (glass container only, start with high power for 1 minute and then stir and continue microwaving in fifteen second increments stirring between each time until fully melted); a double boiler method (fill a saucepan with water and put the glass or metal container filled with crayons into the water and bring to a boil); or a candle warmer (glass container only). We use the candle warmer method with glass measuring cups. It is safer and doesn’t get as hot as the other methods so both the wax and the cup can be touched with barehands and not burn.

Pour melted crayons into plastic candy or soap molds, silicone molds, or shaped ice cube trays. Make sure to not pour the crayons too thick.

Let cool for at least two hours. Then pop them out and start coloring!!

Do you have old crayons that will just go into the trash? Are you a teacher who throws out old crayons at the end of the school year? Consider trying this method of recycling and reusing them!