DIY Rainbow Crayons

Today the girls and I finally got around to a fun kid craft that I've been wanting to do with them for a long time. With a love of coloring, the girls go through crayons pretty quickly, with many of them breaking or getting worn down after much use, so we end up with lots of little broken pieces. A week or so ago, I went through their crayon boxes and separated out the little pieces into a bowl for us to make rainbow crayons with.

The girls have been pretty excited to do this project, so today I told them if they would help me peel the crayons that still had paper on them, then we could make them. Since the sun was shining and there was, miraculously, no cold wind blowing, we sat outside on a picnic blanket peeling the crayons and eating cinnamon swirl bread. Afterwards, I let the girls put the crayon pieces into the muffin cups to make their own color combinations. I had to help Mae a little, because she wanted to put giant handfuls in each cup. Although they each got to make 12 crayons (a muffin tray full), I think they could have made better crayons if I'd only let them make six each. The results were a little thinner than I was hoping for, but usable nonetheless.

I think I may have let the crayons "cook" a little too long. My whole kitchen smelled like candles when you blow them out after I took these out.