Photo by FallingOnVegas

So I'm still collecting easy handmade holiday gift ideas. This week, it's all about Recycled Crayon Gifts. Can I get a drum roll please...?

Okay, so maybe I'm the last to know, but you can recycle crayons! I found this out when mylittleabby was talking up the Reuse Crayon idea in the handmade holidays group.

It's true! You can put old broken crayons into fun-shaped molds, melt them, and get brand new cooler crayons. What an excellent, affordable, eco-friendly gift idea. Plus, with a chunky mold, you make the perfect hard-to-break, toddler-ized crayon too.

Photo from Funky Little Monkey

Per Funky Little Monkey (recommended by carrie_grace), here's one way to make Recycled Crayons:

  • Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  • Coat each space of a mini-muffin pan well but minimally with vegetable oil.
  • Place broken crayons, sans labels, in the pan up to the rim—about three to four crayons per space (make single-color crayons or crayons with high-contrasting colors).
  • Place the pans in the oven and cook for 8 minutes (until crayon shape has melted away)
  • Remove them from the oven and let them sit for about 15 minutes.
  • Keeping the crayons in the muffin pan, freeze them for another 15-30 minutes.

Wrap up the crayons cute and pair them with a sketch pad or coloring book. Tada! A fun, creative gift.

I'm thinking egg-shaped crayons would be cool. Has anyone seen an egg-shaped mold? Or how about rock-shaped crayons, like the ones Angry Chicken showed the other day. How could you make that shape?


If you have an easy handmade holiday gift idea you'd like to have featured here on Home & Garden Buzz, send me a PM with the details.

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