Crayon fun

OK I admit I have been waiting for an excuse to do this for ages (having seen it on WhiMSy love)! But the Bean has just discovered that it is really fun to snap crayons. Well yes it is, but it is also really annoying to have loads of little bits of snapped crayon all over the place. So the solution? One massive snapping and peeling session and then melt them all down to make some chunky crayons perfect for little fingers.

Snapping done by the Bean and unfortunately all that peeling done by me. It made my fingers bleed.

And there is something really lovely about all those tones of crayons ready to melt. I just used a jam tart tin and put similar colours together but the one I did with mixed colours worked great too.

So then into the oven at about gas mark 7 for just a few minutes (this is an attempt at a mid-melt shot, please do not examine the disgusting state of my oven).

Then let them cool and finish off in the freezer and out they pop! Strangely there seemed to be a layer of hard colourless wax on the top of most of them but I just carved it off with a knife, and the new crayons are much softer and nicer than the old ones.

Here we are giving them a go

And the Bean trying them out at some real colouring (actually in this shot you can also see one remaining snapped crayon and her brilliant Stabilo pencils that are really not meant for children but are actually so perfect for them it is worth the slightly more sizeable investment)

And then too too many pictures of the crayons themselves because I think they are beautiful!