What to do with your old, broken crayons? Or maybe you suffer from a surplus of skinny crayons that your toddler can’t quite handle yet – here’s the solution for you! DIY recycled crayon cars! After struggling with my toddler constantly snapping his crayons (and snacking on them if we’re going to be honest), I needed a better solution for coloring. Between him (3) and his sister (1), crayons were quickly becoming a dangerous item.
After stumbling through a few accounts on Instagram and seeing another mom melt her crayons in a muffin pan, I decided to go the more adventurous route of finding a fun mold and melting it in there! Here’s what I did:
What You Need for DIY Recycled Crayon Cars
Really, the only things you need for recycled crayon cars are crayons and a silicone car mold. I found mine on Amazon for under $20. It was much larger than I originally thought, but I would rather have something bigger than too small – and it ultimately ended up being the perfect size for this specific project. You can find the exact mold I used here.
The crayons we used were from our local overstock store on $0.25 day. Also, we originally had six packs, but only managed to use one over a year so I thought this was the perfect solution. The brand is Target’s up & up brand.
Other items that I already had at home and used include:
- My oven
- Stainless steel bowl
- Spoon
- Cookie sheet
They didn’t play a crucial part in making these car crayons, but they did help when I made mistakes or wanted to make something easier on myself. For example, using the cookie sheet under the silicone mold.
How to Make DIY Recycled Crayon Cars
For the exact process of how to make DIY recycled crayon cars, watch the video below! I’ll explain in detail after:
Now that you’ve watched the quick video, let’s break it down into easy steps. I’ll also include a few things you can alter based on your silicone mold and oven:
- Fill a bowl with warm-hot water, add in all the crayons you plan on using
- Let sit for 10 minutes, this should be plenty of time for the glue holding the crayon wrapper on to melt and the paper will fall right off into the water. You may need to easily remove some of the stuck on papers.
- Pre-heat your oven to 200F or 250F if your oven runs a little off like mine. Set your silicone mold on a cookie sheet. Start putting the different broken crayons (or breaking your crayons like me) and putting them in the car you want them to melt in. The smaller you break them, the less air you’ll have and the fuller your mold will be.
- Overfill the mold slightly, but don’t let them go to the side – only overfill on top. Since the crayon is slow-melting it’ll fall directly into the mold and not spill out.
- Once your oven is ready, put the mold (should be on your cookie sheet for stability) into the oven and set a timer for 25 minutes. If the mold you are using is only partially filled vs. full, set your timer for less. If you have a deeper mold, you may need to bake for longer. Your crayons should be fully melted before removing from the oven.
- After your crayons are melted, remove from oven and let sit on your stove-top until they are at least Simi-solid and you can touch the silicone. You can now let sit and air cool or place in your freezer for a quicker cool down time.
- Once cool, you can remove them from your mold and you’re done!
The Results: Awesome Toddler-Friendly Crayon Cars
The top two cars were the green/yellow and pink/red. I filled their molds the best and the colors worked the best together. Many of the molds were under-filled, leaving the tires on the cars halfway done. Luckily, they all made my toddler VERY happy, which is the main goal.
10/10 will be using this method of recycling old crayons in the future. I plan to contact my son’s school and offer the new ones I find affordably for broken ones from his age group. This will help reduce waste and keep fresh crayons for their students. I am going to find a smaller mold to try next time. These cars turned out super cool, but they were too big for the crayons he has.
Are you interested in making recycled crayon cars for your kids? Let us know in the comments!
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