Craft Ideas for Kids: Make New Crayons
Looking for simple craft ideas for kids? Here’s one using that bagful of broken crayons lying around the house. Just recycle these odds and ends into cute new, rainbow crayons!
With these crayons, kids can create a rainbow of colors with every stroke.
How to Make Rainbow Crayons
What you need:
- Broken crayons
- Knife and cutting board (optional and for adults)
- Muffin tin
- Paper cupcake liners
- Oven
How to make it:
Heat oven to 250 degrees F. Peel paper from the crayons. Then, grasping crayons between two hands, snap the crayons to break them up into pieces. You may want a knife to cut some smaller pieces.
Line muffin tins with cupcake liners. Put the crayons into the muffin tins about halfway to the top. Think about how you want to distribute the colors. If you mix them completely, you’ll have a multi-colored result throughout. If you partition each color separately, you’ll have more uniform, colored streaks.
An adult should put the muffin tin into the oven. Bake until crayons melt, about 15 to 20 minutes. Do not leave the oven unattended.
When crayons are melted, an adult should carefully remove the muffin tin from the oven and allow crayons to cool completely. When cooled, peel off the paper liners and crayons are ready to use.
Rainbow Crayon Variations
- To make smaller rainbow crayons, use mini muffin tins; if you don’t have the right-size liners, bake directly in the tin, cool crayons, then refrigerate or freeze for about 10 to 15 minutes. Crayons should just pop out.
- You can use oven-safe silicone molds to make fancier crayons. Here’s the mold I used to make LEGO-style blocks.
- Use many colors of broken crayons to make one rainbow crayon, or use just one or two. Crafts for kids should be flexible to allow each child to make their own design decisions.
Not just for crayons, use LEGO-style silicone molds to make gummy candy.
What Kids Learn from the Activity
- Discuss how we have limited resources on this planet and that it’s everyone’s responsibility to reuse and recycle as much as possible, even if the replacement is inexpensive and we have the means to buy new.
- Explore color combinations–it’s fascinating to see how the mixed crayon colors turn out when melted together.
- Be creative using multi-colored crayons in an art project.
For another recycling project, make gift wrap from discarded brown paper.
- Teach kids to plan ahead for how they want the colors to appear in their rainbow crayons. For example, for stripes of color, they’ll want to lay down the crayons in their desired order, in the mold.
Yes, this is a fun craft to do with the kids. They love seeing all the colors that come out of their new rainbow crayons.
Also, with your help, have them grate the broken crayons onto a piece of folded wax paper, which sits on top of a piece of old newspaper. Or if wanting to keep colors separate, put each color in a little bowl or even muffin tins. If not comfortable with them grating, you can do this for them. Or let them make shavings in a pencil sharpener. Let them sprinkle the grated crayons on the wax paper and fold the other side of wax paper on down over crayon shavings. Place another piece of paper or newspaper on top of this. You will need to do the next part. Iron the wax paper until the crayons melt, keep checking. You can have them draw designs ahead of time on the wax paper and cut them out, or do it after. Either punch a hole in top and pull string through to hang. Alternatively, tape the string to the back and hang. Hang in their window so they can see the colors coming through their stained glass sun catcher. Kids love to see their designs with the sun shining through. It’s also fun to put circles of wax paper melted crayons on the ends of toilet paper or paper towel rolls, either adhering with rubber bands or tape, and let them use it as a kaleidoscope.
Keep a craft box full of recycled items for them to use. So many fun projects for them to make with recycled items around the house.
You are brilliant! A million thanks for sharing so many great, actionable, fun ideas. We will have to try these!