Baked Crayons

I know it's all over the place, but baking crayons is so much better than having the girls pick up little bits and pieces of crayons every time they decide to color.  But I also learned there is a bit of a process that goes with it.  It begins with this...

Then we took a break at the pool.  Then sorted all the crayons into big color groups, but I didn’t want them to be so big that they were hard to actually color with.  So we divided them into smaller groups in my baby cupcake pan.

Letting the girls watch them melt in the oven was fun, and that’s about when they lost interest.  After the first pan.   It takes a little bit of time to melt them because you only want to cook them @ 250 degrees for about then minutes. I also figured out that setting it in a pan of water to cool it off enough to stick it in the freezer helped a lot. If they don't pop out immediately I also found that GENTLY taking a hammer to the back side will help them along a bit too.

I think next time I will use liners to prevent it from sticking but I think the smooth edges are pretty.  It’s not too bad to clean up. I just threw the empty pan back in the oven then wiped out the little bits of melted wax out with a paper towel.

 And in the end, this is what we ended up with...

The brown and gold shiny one is my favorite.

 These are so much nicer to keep track of than all the little bitty peaces.

Will be linking at Today's Creative Blog, among others.