Recycled crayons, a Valentine's craft

I've been craving color as the winter drab rolls right on into February. Motivated by the recycled crayon projects I've run across online, I thought the boys would enjoy the process of peeling, breaking, melting, and coloring with their own penguin shaped crayons. With Valentine's Day just a week away the timing was right for us to make a few batches to wrap up with notes of love for their friends.

Our crayon collection was down to the nubbins so we went out and bought a box of new ones. 

The next order of business was to peel all the crayons. I picked at them for a while but Roscoe discovered that teeth work really well. After some trial and error we found that soaking the crayons in a cup of water was the nearly effortless solution, most of the wrappers pulled off triumphantly in one piece.

Next we sorted all the naked crayons into color groups and (the best part) broke them into little pieces.

We used a silicone ice cube tray in the shape of penguins. The boys filled each bird with a small handful of pieces. Then we placed the mold onto a baking sheet and into a 250 degree oven for about 11 minutes.

We kept a close eye on them and when all the little bits were melted we carefully removed the tray and then let them cool for a good ten minutes before transferring them to the fridge for the last five. I recommend waiting until they're cool before popping them out of the mold--I tried to remove the first set when they were still slightly warm and some of them cracked. It also would have been nice to have two molds in order to efficiently alternate baking with cooling.

Now we just need to wrap them up and send them on their way to good friends in time for the big day.