Fun with Freckle Face: Halloween Crayons

Today, I have a great craft to share with you! It is so easy, and practically free, so I can't imagine why you wouldn't give it a try. I made Halloween crayons with my niece and nephew and had a great time. Here is how you can make your own.

Everyone has one, that box of misfit crayons that sits around because you just don't have the heart to get rid of them. Well now you can reuse them and give them a new life. The first thing you need to do is pick out all of the broken and naked crayons.

I love how completely over processed this photo is. I'm still learning the intricacies of my camera and photoshop, it will take me a while to adjust. Once you have pulled out your crayons you can sort them into color groups, and then give them a good chop.

I made a small mistake here. I mixed way too much blue into this group which masked the other colors in the crayons. You can see this in the bat and the cat. Why yes, I'm a poet and I know it! Sorry, I got distracted, moving on! Crayolas melted a lot better than any other crayon. We tried a box of Disney Princess crayons and all of the wax floated to the top, leaving the pigment at the bottom. It made them more like chalk. Those are the flower ones we made, the Halloween ones are all crayola and they turned out great! I'm kind of a crayon snob, so I didn't have any problems making sure there wasn't any off brands in the crayons I bought.

Next step, grab a cute kid and have him/her put the chopped crayons into a mold. We used a silicone ice cube mold from Ikea and Halloween Jello molds.

Once the molds are full they should look like this! You can see from this picture that I sorted my colors for the Halloween crayons. Yellow and orange went in the pumpkin molds, black and white into the ghosts, and different shades of green into the witches.

Then stick them in the oven at 225 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until they are all melted.

Make sure that while they are in the oven you make plenty of silly faces. It is really important to the process!

After you pull them out, make sure you let them cool all the way down. If you don't you will alter the shape, burn yourself, or crack the crayon. But with patience you will get these little beauties! So much fun!