Make Candles With Old Crayons

Candle Making With Old Crayons

Making candles out of your old crayons is a great recycling idea, especially if your kids old crayons are broken bits and ones that they can't possibly use to color and draw anymore, so before you throw them in the bin, put them into a container and put them away as they can be used to create candles. It may be a good idea to let your children help you as it's a good project you can all get involved with and the fact that their broken crayons helped to make some brand new candles.

Safety is vital if you are doing this with your kids as the heating of the wax, they won't be doing, but the rest of it they can, so reassure them that they'll have something to do that is really important and best of all fun. First though you'll need candle making supplies to start, but what you'll need specifically is obviously the broken crayons, an old carton, any milk or plastic bottle one will do, paraffin wax, white string - try the packing string, that is ideal, also you'll need a double boiler and two full ice cube trays.

First steps

Cut the top off the carton remembering to leave it about six inches high, now the string, which will be the candles wick needs to be slightly longer at around 8 inches and you'll trim it down later to match the holder, if you want your candles to burn better, then take two to three pieces of string and braid them together and tie the top and bottoms of the wick. You can use anything that isn't flammable for the candle holders, vases, old drinking glasses or used jars.

Next, it is the wax melting process, so you may want to do this and make sure the kids just observe but don't touch (common sense right!) you'll need to melt a couple of pounds of paraffin wax in the double boiler, try slicing it into small chunks so that the wax melts quicker, while this is slowly melting, make sure the old crayons don't have any paper on them whatsoever and decide on grouping them into color groups.

Once the wax has melted completely, then add the crayons and then when the crayons have melted into the wax, it is a case of being quick and pouring the hot wax into your candle holders, if you feel a little adventurous, try adding some smelly scents to your waxy mixture. Now just leave the candles to harden and this could take a few hours, so make sure the kids don't interfere with the setting process, as they could still burn themselves by being eager to check out their candles.

This is an excellent way of doing a craft project with your kids that is time spent having fun and something to do that will make you both feel like you have accomplished a fun art and craft project, you can let the children add any decorations to the candle holder once completely set, so have fun on this candle making project.