Friday, May 22, 2009

Making Crayon Scribblers



Well, we've seen a lot of other people make "scribblers", so we decided that it was about time to try! The kids found a large box of old crayon pieces and got to work taking the paper labels off. We worked on this a little bit at a time over about 4 days.

A muffin tin was placed on the table, and everyone got to create their own color combinations.


We preheated the oven to 300 degrees and watched the crayons melt pretty quickly! Once they looked like they had reached a liquid state, we took the tin out of the oven, let it cool for a few minutes, then placed it in the freezer for 1/2 hour.

Our first batch came out OK...most of them broke. We realized that we might have let them melt too long and freeze too long, so we watched the next batch a little closer.


The second batch came out better and only a couple of the scribblers broke. Our third batch was perfect!


The kids had fun drawing with their scribblers (even the broken pieces!). What a fun way to reuse old crayons and make something that is beautiful and artistic.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

They are beautiful. I tried making them once in what I assumed were silicone muffin trays. They were in fact just rubber or plastic....it was not good!

Tan Family said...

Hello lovestitches! Good to know that plastic trays don't work. I've also known people to melt with a double-boiler and then pour into the tins, but we haven't tried that yet.

Tammy said...

They are very pretty. I saw some of them over on your etsy shop the other day. :)

Sara said...

Those look great! It is always fun to watch and see the design they take on as they melt. We made some little heart shaped ones and gave them to J's friends for Valentine's Day.

dawn klinge said...

The scribblers look so pretty. I've never tried this with my kids. We have plenty of old crayons, and I'm sure they would love this project. Thanks for the idea.

Tan Family said...

Hi Sara! Great idea about Valentine's Day. We just found a muffin tin with small heart shapes at a thrift store. These would be wonderful gifts!

Tan Family said...

Hi Tammy! The most perfect batch contained a few that we decided to sell on Etsy. When the kids sell something that they make on Etsy, the $ goes into their college fund. :)

Tan Family said...

Hi Dawn! Thanks for the nice note. This also became a science experiment, of sorts, as we realized that different brands of crayons had different melting points. Lots of neat discussions about the science of melting crayons!

Acorn to Oak said...

What a great idea! That looks like a lot of fun to make and use! And, I love that it's using up little old pieces that might otherwise be thrown away. :-D

Anonymous said...

What a fun post!
We made this type of crayon and used little paper cups to melt the broken crayons in. I cooked them on a very low heat and then after they hardened and cooled on the counter we peeled away the paper cups...
I even just love the beauty of the colors swirled together when they are not being used! : )

therese said...

i tried this once, it didn't work at all. the different types of crayons melted differently from each other, some just turned into liquid, clear oil it seemed - and the fumes! i might have had the wrong type(s) of crayons, but i haven't read a warning about this anywhere.

Tan Family said...

Hi Therese! I believe that you are right. We noticed that the Crayola ones melted differently from the cheaper ones and the sparkly ones. Watching them melt through the oven was key so that they didn't overcook and we could tell when the last bit of crayon finally liquified. And, not freezing them too long, too!

Tammie Lee said...

This is such a great idea! I had one of these crayons when I was young and I loved it!

Thanks for your visit and comment!

Joy said...

We've done this several times in the past with triangle shaped silicone muffin molds. The kids love them. Just don't use washable crayons, they seem to separate and make weird scribblers. :)

~Phyllis~ said...

That is really interesting and what a great way to use up old crayons. I love the color mixtures.

Michelle said...

What a fun project! Like Sara, we made them for Valentine's Day, attached to a note that read "You color my world."

What a beautiful blog you have!

Cheers!!
~Michelle

Unknown said...

This looks like a fun project! Thx for following my blog. I have deleted my blog for the time being. Just wanted to thank you for your support and readership. I'll catch up with you via Google Reader.

The Scolari House said...

What a great idea! We're going to have to do this sometime soon. We've got a stockpile of broken unlabeled crayons that would work perfectly for this fun project. Thank you so much for posting this!

Kristie Karima Burns, MH, ND said...

Your kids are so lucky to have a real spinning wheel! Cool!

Wren said...

Oh my goodness this looks like so much fun! Thanks so much for you kind comment and for stopping by the "Burbs." Have a wonderful weekend!