Art room trash into treasure

While setting up my room last week I cleaned out the old crayon boxes of broken pieces and filled them back up with fresh crayons. (Oh the beauty of a box of new crayons!!). I soaked off the paper from the old crayons and then found two ways to transform them. A selection of sorted crayon pieces in neutrals, warms, and cools ended up in my "ART" mosaic on the door. The rest have been recycled into new multicolored chubby crayons.

 At home I found an egg poaching tray which I have NEVER used (and will never use again for cooking). Each compartment was filled up with crayon bits sorted into analogous colors centered on secondaries. I placed it on a cookie tray and set it in the oven for 15 minutes on 250.

 They're beautiful when melted together. A little jiggle of the tray helps swirl the colors together a bit. I wish there was marbled paint like this that wouldn't mix together into mud. I'm reminded of a certain old Looney Tunes cartoon with Easter bunnies dipping brushes into multicolored paint cans and slapping patterns onto eggs!

Since I only had the 3 crayon batches going at a time, it's been slow going. However my bag of crayon crumbles has now transformed into about 30 new multi-colored crayon disks that fit very nicely in the hands. The best use of these, I believe, will be for doing texture rubbings. The analogous color blends create instant interesting color on the page. I've also considered using these as reward prizes throughout the year, but maybe that's something to do with next year's batch of crayon bits. Maybe by then I can also find a nice silicone candy mold to make cool shapes instead of discs.

Moral of the story: no kid wants to use a broken crayon, but every kid has fun with a multicolored crayon, and this project saves money in the budget while creating something awesome for the art classroom!