With a craft loving 5 year old and a curious 1 year old it’s inevitable that things like sharp pencils and chewable crayons will find their way into the baby’s hand. Euan wouldn’t have known such things existed when he was this small yet Luca is growing up surrounded by interesting craft materials and big kid toys that make his baby things seem, frankly, rather dull. I had the bright idea to melt down E’s collection of crayons so that L would stop trying to put them in his mouth. The result was just different shape wax crayons he put in his mouth but hey, they’re no longer thin and stick like and E and I had a lot of fun making them.
To make wax crayon shapes
- soak the crayons in water for easy removal of the paper wrapper
- break up the crayons and place in a muffin tin or silicon shape mould
- Bake in the oven at 150 degrees for 30 minutes
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
- Enjoy hours of fun decorating a large cardboard box with your new wax crayon shapes (L just loved putting them in and out of our zippy wallet).
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please note:
this will ruin your silicone tray we discovered so please don’t use one you love making chocolate shapes or cakes in! Some other blog posts recommend heating at 200 degrees for 10 minutes but I didn’t fancy taking something that hot and liquidy out of my oven with kids in the kitchen. I think a slower cooler melt time enables the different colours to remain slightly separate.
