Recycling Crayons

We have a ton of crayons around our house!!  Some are broken and some are extras that we get every time we take the kids out to eat.  

In the past I would bag up the good ones and donate them to the school.  But, how many blue, red, yellow and green crayons (the colors we almost always get when eating out) can a school use???

Now that my kiddos are getting a little bigger I have been saving them up to "recycle".  I love the idea of melting the crayons to form new shapes!  My kids also love it so I thought I would share this for anyone who hasn't tried it yet.  

Here is a really easy way to get the paper off the crayons!  

Soak them for a minute in warm water!

The paper practically falls off!

I found this tool once that incorporates all the steps very easily into one picture!  Even down to the baking temp and time!  I refer to it every time we "recycle" our crayons!

Love the idea of using them for cards!!!

I made these Lego crayons for my son.
For these - I sorted the colors so they were solid instead of "rainbow".