Recycle crayon-stumps by melting and die-cutting 'em

Love this technique for recycling crayons-stumps: melt 'em down, swirl 'em around, roll 'em out, and stamp shapes out of them with cookie cutters. New Crayons from Old Ones (via Craft)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Happy Mutants • Kids • maker

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Antinous

Mommy, these cookies taste funny.
EH

They taste like…burning.
Phos….

HAHAHAHAAAA!!!

This reminds me of something I used to do as a toddler back in the early 1960′s.

Much to my parent’s and grandmother’s horror, I used to chew up stubs of Crayolas and then spit them out on the hot summer sidewalk, watch them melt, then swirl the colors around with a stick.

My granddad used to laugh encouragingly, and even played a little bit with me when I did it, because he knew the crayons were non-toxic.

I may have to try this updated take on my little kid activity.

:)
Kathryn Cramer

I did that one using muffin tins for child #1. It felt enough like both motherly excess and excessive thrift that I haven’t repeated the experience for child #2.
cinemajay

“…melt ‘em down, swirl ‘em around, roll ‘em out, and stamp shapes out of them with cookie cutters.”

And then what?
Anonymous

My mother used to do that sort of thing with our stubby crayons. We had this huge bin of them, and when it got to be too overwhelming, she’d sort them by color and put them into muffin papers and melt them down in the oven.

Once they’d dried, we had flat round crayons.
neurolux

They look pretty, but if you’re picky about what color you want to use when drawing, not good to swirl. You could use 4 different colors for the 4 points on the butterfly, that would be more practical.
Anonymous

Another thing you can do with leftover crayons is to take a cheap picture frame, remove the glass and place it on a baking sheet, sprinkle chopped-up crayon on it, and put it in the oven.

The wax will melt into brighly colored puddles that you can swirl around and mix together, and once it’s cooled you can mount the glass back in the picture frame – instant swirly abstract art! :)
Anonymous

I used to do stuff like this as a kid. I would take crayons and put them inside different things like shells and stuff then set them next to my vent so that (during the winter obviously) they would melt when the heat got jacked up and eventually I’d have these shell shaped crayon things.
ployntabs

I’m sorry but that’s cool. Doesn’t anyone have the urge to color with those things just to see what happens?

what a hoot!
Miss Cellania

You could cut them into the shape of crayons!
insomma

Be sure your kids know to never do this without supervision. I almost burned down my entire kitchen when I was young, trying to make a crayon-candle before my parents came home from work. The result was basically a grease fire, which ten-year-olds don’t usually know how to extinguish properly.
ESQ

We use holiday and shaped muffin molds found cheaply at the thrift store- much less effort as they are pre-shaped when melted. I’ve got a few sweet skull crayons on my desk that my son made. I should send pics to Skull-A-Day…