A Little Valentine's DIY

So this year, rather than buying pre-made Valentine's Day presents for my friends I've decided to focus my energy on creating a little homemade love to share instead. 

Since I joined Pinterest I have been wanting to try making my own crayons by breaking them up and melting them in the oven. Valentine's Day presented the perfect opportunity, especially when I found a silicone candy tray at the mall. 

I did use this photo tutorial I found on Pinterest to base my experiment on. It really was as simple as it looks!

The best crayons to use for this project are old, broken crayons that have had their fun colouring pictures over the years but unfortunately I didn't have any old crayons. I bought four cheap boxes of crayons to use for this project and enlisted Jay's help in peeling them all (his method was far more efficient)! 

I then used an old cutting board and knife to chop the crayons to bits. Around this time you should also pre-heat the oven to about 230-250 degrees. 

Once your crayons are peeled and chopped you just put them in the silicone candy tray. 

Bake the crayons for about fifteen minutes, or until they are entirely melted. Remove from oven and let cool. Patience isn't really my thing so after about five minutes on the counter I put the tray in the freezer for another fifteen minutes of so to re-harden the wax. 

Sidenote: Some of the wax separated leaving a layer of clear wax on the back of the crayon. I started stirring my final batches to avoid this, but I think the problem was the brand of crayons I chose. If you spend a lot of time colouring you can probably see a difference in types of crayons, some look more waxy than others. I think Crayola, or similar texture to Crayola crayons would be best for this project. 

Once completely cooled pop the crayons out of the tray and colour away! You can also package them up to share with your friends! 

Voila! Beautifully shaped crayons! 

Tips and Suggestions

• I've seen examples on Pinterest where metal muffin trays have been used, this might work. I'd recommend silicone just because you can easily pop the crayons out afterwards. 
• I did make some solid coloured crayons, do these first if you are reusing your tray as it gets harder and harder to get all the crayon shards out of the tray, so you end up with yellow flecked with blue (which is cool in itself). 
• I recommend using a muffin pan (and knife and cutting board if possible), you don't plan to bake with in the future as it is quite difficult to clean all the wax off. 
• Make sure your silicone tray is oven safe so there are no surprises.
• The wax in the crayons I used separated, leaving a layer of clear wax. To avoid this I stirred my final batches with toothpicks and filled the trays a little fuller. 
• Have fun!

Did you give it a try? I'd love to hear how it worked for you and if you have any ideas on how to further improve the process. 

Keep Smiling :)