Crazy Crayons: A Fun, Inexpensive & Creative Classroom Gift Idea

By simplesahm | December 5, 2008

It has been insanely cold here this week so instead of sending the kids outside to play, we’ve been creating gifts for our neighbors and their teachers & friends. Yesterday, we made cookies & pumpkin bread…today is “crazy crayon” day.

I found this “recipe” on Martha Stewart and thought it would be a really great “rainy day”…(or just plain bitterly cold day) craft for the kids and I to try. Once they were completed (see photos) the kids decided that they would make a great gift for their friends at school. I couldn’t agree more.

Here’s how we made ours….

We gathered up all of our crayon scraps (we used about 40 crayons and parts to make 10 crazy crayons).
Then, I put the kids in charge of peeling. (This takes awhile so you may want to pop in a movie or turn on some holiday music while they peel). If you plan ahead, you may want to soak the crayons overnight or for a few hours so they are easier to peel.
Next, I sliced the crayons (using an old chopping knife) into pea-sized pieces and sorted the chopped crayons into small bowls by colors - (reds & oranges, blues & greens, blacks & greys, etc…)
After that, I let the kids sort the pieces into muffin tins. We talked about “earth tones”, primary colors, holiday colors etc…as they put the pieces into the muffin holes.
Finally, I baked the crayon pieces in a 200 degree oven for 15 minutes. You may need to bake them longer or shorter…they will look like liquid when they are completely melted.
It takes an hour or so for the crazy crayons to become solid so I put mine in the freezer when the kids started getting impatient.

That’s it! Wa-la…a fun, educational & “green” craft project & gift idea.

We are going to make more later this week and put them into cute baggies for a little gift for the kids’ classmates.