Crayons!!!

So I've been seeing lots of broken crayons around the homestead and finally decided to do something about it!  I got myself down to the Walmart and picked up a really cheap mini muffin tin for about $3.  Then I spent an hour peeling the wrappers off the broken crayons that had collected at the bottom of our crayon lunch box.  That sounds strange, but our crayons do not eat lunch, they reside in a tin lunch box.  Anyway, after the pieces were all peeled (which was terribly annoying and I don't recommend doing it when you want to look your best because I now have a million different colors of crayon under my fingernails) I broke them into small pieces and combined them in the mini muffin molds.  Some spaces got different shades of the same color.  Some got a few colors and some got a kind of rainbow.  I really enjoyed playing around with the color combos and seeing what they looked like in the end.
  As you can see, we had a lot of reds, oranges and yellows.  My favorite is the one with the blues.  I think it looks like the ocean, so pretty.  The cool thing about these crayons is 1. they are being recycled into new crayons, because let's face it - kids don't ever use the broken crayons and 2. when you color with them, you

never know what it's going to look like!  How fun is that?!?!  I've decided to package some of them up with  a homemade coloring book for Christmas gifts for some of my dear friends (you know who you are!) and to package some up to give to Moo in her stocking!  Yes, that's right.  I did this project without Moo.  Gasp!  Shock!  In my defense, I tried to get her to come over and help me but she was too into her movie (Enchanted) and wouldn't budge.  So I did the entire thing myself.  Yes, it was super fun.  Yes, it would have been great to do with kids (as long as an adult does the actual baking part).  So now she has no idea that lovely creations are sitting right behind her on the kitchen counter.
So here's all you do.
1. peel paper off broken crayons
2. break broken crayons into bits that will fit in your molds
3. fill oven safe molds (muffin tins work great) with bits of crayon
4. heat oven to 350*F
5. when oven reaches 350*F turn it off, then place muffin tin in oven

6. watch the crayons carefully, remove them if they start to smoke
7. keep tray in the oven until the crayons look like soup and you can't see any large crayon chunks
8. let cool completely!  When totally dry they will shrink and fall right out of the mold.

* When popping them out of the mold, place two or three towels on the counter and turn the tin over on the towels.  If you do this on your counter, the crayons may crack.

Now color away!  So fun and easy!  I got the instructions for this from the internet and there are a million ways to do it, so you can use these instructions or find your own.  But please keep in mind that I am not a professional crayon melter and can not be held responsible for you burning down your house.  Crayons are made of wax and wax can burn and catch fire, so watch that mold while it's in the oven and do remove it if it starts to smoke.  There, disclaimer done.

 Which is your favorite?