FEATURE
July 2024
Getting Crafty with Crayons
By Billie Lyons
If you are a busy parent, like so many of us are, you will find this 10-minute craft can fill in the gaps between school, practices, homework, and bedtime while allowing you to spend a few precious extra moments with your children instead of your phones. No judgement from my end, I’m just the alternative suggestion box (take it or leave it!). Luckily, this activity takes very little time setting up and even less time to clean up. Let’s get started!Humboldt County is a ideal place to learn how to forage for mushrooms since the ocean mist and fog create an abundance of these little guys. Fall and winter, the wetter seasons, are the best seasons for foraging, but there are still plenty of varieties of mushrooms that can be found in the summer.
Custom crayons.
Facebook.com/bettershapes, used with permission.
To make these delightful crayons, you will need to be preemptive about gathering the materials:
1. You will need a mold with shapes that are around a 1” square and about 1 to 2 cm deep. That’s not to say the activity cannot be done with other dimensions but I have found that these dimensions tend to produce the most consistent and durable crayons to actually use. You can find some great mold designs in the baking section at Michael’s craft store for under $10 each. Or, if patience is a skill practiced by your family, you can order the molds online and wait a few days. Make sure that the mold is safe to tolerate high temperatures (if it is from a baking section in the store, it likely will be).
2. Gather several colors of crayons to use for materials. If you have that busted up box of crayon parts that has been around since the glory days of “X-Files”, then here is a purpose for that box. (If you have no idea what I’m referring to, simply disregard. Ahem!) The Crayola crayon box sets (preferably the 60 or 120) offer a suitable range of colors to start with, especially if you have more than one child to engage (there will be multiple hues of any color so it should minimize fighting). You can also use other brands like Rose Art but the end product will not be as vibrant, nor as durable. If you want to spice it up a bit, Crayola also has a wide range of themed color sets (also available at any craft store) like skin tone, neon, confetti and more.
3. Wax paper has the dual task of both protecting your countertops and acting as a non-absorbent catcher for any spilled crayon wax. You can peel any wax pieces off like Wonka buttons and pop them into a later batch. You could substitute the wax paper for regular newspaper, but it may render the spills useless (the ink from the paper tends to mix into the crayon wax).
The Process:
A) The great thing about this activity is the ability to scale it to meet your child’s capabilities. This can be a straight-forward process or it can venture off into creative whirlwind that lasts for hours. For younger children, the simplest path will yield the best results. The most direct route begins with pre-peeling the crayons that you intend for your child to use and distributing them first into a Tupperware container and then to your child. Set out the mold(s) you are going to use and have your child start by choosing the crayons they want to use for each section.
B) Break the crayons up into small pieces and Tetris them into the shapes on the mold while dry. It is up to you if you want to take a hands-on approach to help with this or if it is age appropriate to let them figure out how to make the pieces fit. It is not an exact science (use your best judgement), but every time I have tried this activity with a different mold, it seems to work out that if you break off the tip of the crayon, one full crayon should be able to fit into one cavity on your mold.
C) When you have the whole mold full, head over to the microwave (if a baking mold) and pop it on for about 30 seconds (you can adjust it according to the temp of your microwave) or until the wax has fully melted in the mold but not bubbling. The best way to prevent injury is to leave it in the microwave for about 10 mins to cool. The good news is that crayon wax hardens remarkably fast so you won’t have to entertain your children with card tricks forever. Then pop out the pieces and voila!
Some helpful suggestions:
Molds with small cavities can be used, but the resulting crayons will be fragile and more of a pain than anything (for example: the alphabet molds or the thin fondant embellishment molds).
If the molds you have aren’t baking molds, you can use an old coffee cup to melt the crayon wax in the microwave and then pour it into the mold.
If you do not own a microwave (more power to ya!), you can use mini foil pie tins and barbecue tongs to melt the wax over the flame on your stove and pour into the molds once viscous.
You can mix colors in the mold in any of the ways: by putting differently colored sticks of wax in the mold pre-microwave, by pouring wax back-to-back on top of each color, after heating the colors separately and pouring simultaneously, or by heating one color thoroughly and popping in chunks of other colors right before you pour. This is the fun part; experiment varying the sizes of chips (or grinds, or sticks!) and how you intend to meld them together.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, set your child/children up for success! You control the environment and how messy or chaotic you are going to allow it to be when you are setting up the room. Do your best to minimize saying “no” or “stop,” and just enjoy the time you have with your kids. ν
Did you do this? Please post pictures or videos of your family’s crafting adventure on the “My Humboldt Life” Facebook or at #HumboldtLifeMag on Instagram.
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