How to Make Crayon Shapes with Silicone Molds

Anyone else have a bag of broken used crayons?  Yesterday, my kiddos and I used these old crayons (and some new ones, too) to create heart-shaped crayons for Valentine's Day.

There are several tutorials on the internet for how to do this, and they all vary just a bit.  I'm certainly not trying to recreate anyone's project, but just sharing what worked for us.

The first step is to remove any paper left on the crayons.  You can use a knife or razor blade to help with this.  Then, cut or break the crayons into small pieces.  Depending on the size of your molds, the sizes will vary.  My molds were small (about 1.5 inches in diameter), so I cut my crayons to 1/2" or less in length.  Don't let the kiddos participate in this step - sharp knives and little hands are not a good combination!

Allow the little hands around your house to fill the molds with the crayon pieces.  I have seen many variations of this step- some people just mixed all colors in with each other, making a rainbow crayon.  Others have put all the greens in one mold, yellows in another, etc.  This creates a mosaic of one color, but the various shades give it interest too.  Totally up to you and your child.

Make sure you have an oven-safe mold.  My molds were silicone and I bought them at Ikea.  Here's a few silicone molds available online if you don't have an Ikea nearby-

1:  Gingerbread Boy

2:  Easter Egg

3:  Heart

4:  Football

5:  Letters

6:  Christmas Trees

7:  Jack-O-Lantern

8:  Flowers

9:  Fall Assortment

Once your molds are full, put them on a baking sheet and into a preheated oven at 250 degrees F.  {Please ignore my dirty oven!}  I baked my crayons for 13 minutes, but times may vary depending on your oven.  Watch them closely!

When you remove  them from the oven, use a toothpick to pop any bubbles or push any big crayons deep into the mold (this is especially important if you use some jumbo crayons like I did).

Put them into a freezer for about 10-15 minutes.  This allows them to get very hard (and cold!).

Flip the mold over and pop them out.  This is easy to do since the molds are silicone and are flexible.

Wrap a few together for a gift, or give your kids a piece of paper and let them start coloring!  This is such a simple and fairly cheap idea for holiday gifts, party favors, or just a fun rainy day activity.

I was inspired by this pin on Pinterest for this post.