Got Crayons?

We've had all these crayons since Sela was about 3 years old.  And this doesn't include the full boxes -- that we actually use.  I honestly can't remember buying a single crayon.  Where did these come from? 

This is how it is at our house.

Today we took out all the broken crayons.

We peeled off any remaining paper.

 We separated them by color, put them in Ziplock bags, and pounded them a little -- to get smaller pieces.

Because we have (meltable) heart-shaped ice cube trays and not metal pans in which we can bake & melt the wax, we dumped each color in a paper cup.  We *carefully* microwaved each cup -- one at a time.  In our small microwave, we started with 45 seconds, stirred with a popsicle stick, and added 15 second intervals and stirring until there was mostly liquid wax and a few small chunks.  Most often, it took only one additional setting of 15 seconds.  I wanted to be very careful not to scorch the cup... or worse.  (Now here's where I have to be totally honest.  I really make stuff up as I go along.  "Sure, let's try it," is something I say... pretty often.)

We poured each color into the molds. 

When they were completely cooled & hardened we popped them out.  We smoothed the sides by coloring with the edges a bit.

We put them into bags, stamped a little tag & used a colorful pipecleaner as a twist-tie -- perfect for little hands.

 Happy Valentine's Day!