Upcycled Rainbow Crayons

Crayon is the classic grade school art medium, but eventually even the best crayons become whittled down nubs that aren’t good for much. When this happens, most folks toss them out, but we gather ours up and turn on the oven, turning them into upcycled rainbow crayons.

Materials

crayons
silicone molds or a cupcake pan with foil liners
butter knife or grater (optional)

Prep

Preheat your oven to 200°.

Remove the paper labels from all of the crayons. Sometimes a bit of glue from the label will still be stuck to the crayon. Rub it back and forth until it balls up and can be easily removed.

Decide which colors you’ll be using, then chop or grate the crayons into the molds.

It’s also perfectly fine to just break them into smaller pieces by hand. This method works best for younger kids. It leaves a lot of room for air, though, so be sure to pile them a bit higher than the mold. When they melt, it will even out.

Here we used cool colors in one mold and warm colors in the next.

crayon chunks grouped by color in a silicone baking tray

For rainbow crayons, include red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple crayons. We attempted to keep ours in rainbow order, but once melted, they had a mind of their own! (You can see the finished rainbow crayon below.)

Melt

Silicone is quite floppy, so we always use a baking sheet for support.

trays of crayons gleaming in the heat of the open

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until all crayons are melted.

Remove from heat and allow to cool completely before removing from molds.

rounded crayon mounds in multiple colors cool on a paper towel — Large, rounded shapes are much easier on little hands/new writers than thin, stick-shaped crayons.

crayon hearts that say "true love," "be mine," "love," "how sweet," "miss you," and "luv me" cool on a paper towel — These Valentine’s Day holdovers made great mini crayons with one pointed tip!

a large, round, rainbow crayon — Our rainbow crayons blended even more than we expected.

The Crayon Initiative

Thank you for rescuing your crayon nubs from the landfill! Every bit helps as more than 500,000 pounds of crayons are discarded each year in the United States.

The Crayon Initiative is a non-profit super-crafting machine! After collecting used crayons and melting them into new blends (like you just did), they distribute them to children’s hospitals across the country. If you have the ability to help, you can donate your crayons, start a community collection, or make a monetary donation.