I have been on a big kick to declutter my house lately. I have thrown away so many little broken toys, shredded papers, emptied boxes, and taken clothes and toys to a consignment shop. On today's agenda was getting rid of the big tub of broken crayons.
Kids break crayons constantly. After a while, you just stop buying new ones and let your toddler use the broken crayons. However right now, my youngest daughter (21 months old) is really into dumping the crayon tub and throwing them everywhere. With my health issues, I am just not up to picking pieces constantly.
Solution? Melt down the broken crayons into new ones.
First step- sort by color. Some people do rainbow crayons, but my 3 1/2 year old is a little OCD and does not like her colors mixed up.
Second step- remove any wrappers.
Third step- Preheat your oven at 275 degrees.
Fourth step- Using muffin tins lined with cupcake liners or foil, put the crayons into the muffin tin. If you use cupcake liners, double line it.
(Like so)
Fifth step- Bake crayons. When I read about this it said to do it for 10 minutes, but it really depends on the size of the crayons. We had some larger toddler crayons, so it took me about 20 minutes. Really just watch to see how they are melting.
And voila! New big crayons! Just an extra tip, when unwrapping the crayons, make sure to knock off any of the little tips that occur from the cupcake liners, just to save yourself a mess later.
