Recycle old broken crayons and make your own crayon shapes. We made lego shaped rainbow crayons. Homemade crayon shapes are easy to make following our simple DIY instructions and they make perfect kid made gifts. Reshaping crayons is a fun activity to go alongside the book, 'The Day the Crayons Quit' by Drew Daywalt and it is fun for children to see how crayons go from a solid to a liquid as they melt.
Homemade crayons are lots of fun to make and are perfect for anybody looking for a DIY gift idea that the kids can make. They are really easy to make and they would be fun to give to another child for Christmas, a birthday or to use in party bags. We decided to make lego shaped crayons, but of course you can make any shape you can find a mould for.
We made our shaped crayons after reading the books 'The Day the Crayons Quit' and 'The day the Crayons Came Home'.
'The Day the Crayons Quit' is a story about a little boy called Duncan who just wants to colour. This imaginative book is full of letters from the different coloured crayons saying that they quit and some of their reasons are quite amusing!
'The Day the Crayons Came Home' is a follow on from the first book. The crayons are back and crosser than ever. Duncan receives postcards from the crayons that have been lost forgotten or broken.
You will need: (affiliate links)
- Crayon mould (we used these lego moulds - UK link/ US link)
- Wax crayons (UK link/ US link) old, broken crayons would be perfect for this activity.
How to make your own lego shaped crayons
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees (celsius)
Whilst waiting for the oven to heat up begin by peeling any wrappers off the crayons. This takes a while and a lot of patience. You may find it quicker if you run a knife along one side of the wrapper.
Break the crayons into really small pieces and then put them into the lego mould.
You could sort the crayons by colour, use colours that compliment each other or fill the moulds with multi coloured crayons.
Once the moulds are full of broken crayons place the mould onto a baking tray to keep them flat and then into the oven.
Bake the crayons in the oven for 5-7 minutes until the crayons have completely melted. Keep checking on the crayons to see how they are doing. If you leave the crayons in the oven too long the colours will completely merge into one another. The oven needs to be at 150 degrees (celsius).
Take the melted crayons out of the oven and leave them on a flat surface to cool down. Once they have completely cooled pop the crayons out of the moulds.
Either enjoy your new set of lego shaped rainbow crayons yourself or give them to someone as a homemade gift. A fun way of giving them as a gift to a child might be to give them the lego shaped crayons alongside the book 'The Day the Crayons Quit'. A set of shaped crayons would also be great to go in party bags or to be used as stocking fillers.
Don't forget that your don't need to make them lego shaped, there are lots of fun shaped moulds available that you could use. Take a look at our cute bunny shaped crayons.
If you are looking for more gift ideas that the kids can make take a look at our set of DIY keepsake crafts. There are some really cute ideas that would be perfect to make for family or close friends.
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