This project is a fun way to recycle broken crayons or the extra crayons from restaurants, etc. It's very quick and easy and the kids love the results! We made regular ones just to color with and we also made some into necklaces for Ace to give to his classmates on Valentine's Day.

Materials

• muffin tin
• old crayons
• foil muffin liners
• cord or string
• drinking straw
• oven

Directions
Note: If using a normal sized muffin tin you'll need 3-4 crayons per cup. If using a mini muffin tin you'll need about 2 crayons per cup.

1. Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees. Some people pre-heat to 300 degrees but I found that it melted the wax too quickly and the colors blended too much.
2. Peel the paper off the crayons and break up into small pieces.
3. If you want to use them soon (most kids do) then line your tin with foil muffin liners. Otherwise you'll have to wait awhile until the wax cools enough to pop out of the tin.
4. Break crayons up into small pieces and place in liner. This time we did "rainbow" crayons but I prefer doing them to a theme (ex: different blues and whites for the sky, different greens for grass, red, orange and yellow for sun, etc.)
5. Place tin in oven for 15-20 minutes. Check on them every few minutes, you want the wax to be just melted, not bubbling.
6. Remove from oven. If making necklaces, use your straw to poke a hole. If not, let cool for 5-10 minutes. Remove foil liner when cooled.

Here's Ace wearing his necklace and coloring with the ones we made into regular crayons that we didn't use a liner with.

If you try this or have any other tips I'd love to hear them! Have fun!!