Fall Crayon Making

We've made heart shaped crayons for Valentine's Day before and this time we thought we'd try our hand at some fall one's.

First we collected a bunch of crayons in the colors we wanted to use. Most of these are actually from a new box because I still don't keep broken crayons around the house ...

Then peeled off the papers.

 The kids did some but Dad was WAY faster with a knife.

I always love how the discarded papers look - like a bunch of colorful reptiles shed their skins.

We divide them by color as we sort them.

Breaking them into smaller pieces works well for the melting too.

 I think I say "Don't sit on the counter" at least 600 times a day ... but when I see them happily working together on a project, I turn a blind eye.

 

Then we filled the mold with the crayons.

And put them into the oven at 300F degrees for 20 minutes or so.

While they waited for the crayons I had them sort through their Halloween candy. They take out anything that they don't like (surprisingly quite a lot of things) and anything I won't let them have - the super sticky, chewy stuff that will stick in their teeth. That usually reduces the candy load by at least half :)

 

Once the crayons were done we let them cool.

And packaged them up to give away to friends. Which I forgot to take a picture of!

But the finished product looked a lot like these - from Kiwi crate where I saw the idea. I liked the more yellow leaves the best but my kids were really in love with the more brown and red one's. All of them were beautiful.