Creative Crafts for Old Crayons

Do you have a lot of old, broken or unused crayons laying around? Give your old crayons new life with these Creative Crafts for Old Crayons!

Creative Crafts for Old Crayons

With Back to School season in full swing, crayons are at their absolute cheapest! I love finding packs of crayons for $0.25 or less and stocking up for the entire school year. At that price, we can have fresh crayons for coloring and we can collect the bits and pieces left from last year for other fun things, like the crafts listed in this article!

–Looking for more deals? Learn how to Save Money on Back to School Supplies.

From making new crayons to using them for something completely different, the following ideas will change the way you view those once discarded crayons from now on.

 

Have you ever had old, broken, crayons that you thought had no more use? We have a great recipe for repurposing old crayons here on Little House Living. Such a simple way to reuse crayons..

A fun idea for you and your children, COOKIE crayons! Make the crayons all different sorts of colors. Great for old crayons and great if you only have a muffin pan to make your crayons in.

Crayon Wall Art can be fun and can get very creative. It’s a great craft idea to do with the kids, especially if you have some bigger pieces of crayons to use.

I’m not so sure about this one but it might be a fun, simple way to introduce your little ones to homemade body products. Make lipstick out of crayons! I would just suggest that you make sure to use non-toxic and preferably natural crayons for this craft if possible.

Make coloring more fun, with White Crayon Secret Art. I love this very simple project because you could do it with young toddlers as well as older children.

–If you love this project, you might enjoy this Homemade Finger Paint too!

I thought this Crayon Letter Craft would be a great way for children to make a homemade gift for a birthday present or even a Christmas gift.

–Looking for more homemade gift ideas? Check out a full list of Crafts and Homemade Gifts.

More Uses for Old Crayons: 

Wax Paper Shapes – We plan on doing this several times for school this year. Cut out 2 of the same shapes from wax paper, place crayon shavings in between the shapes, and use an iron to melt the shavings.

–This is a great craft for our 30 Days of Shapes Lesson Plan for Preschool!

Create a Wax Seal – Melt the end of a crayon with a lighter over an envelope that you want to seal. Once you have enough wax, use some kind of stamp to make the seal.

Make Candles – Add old bits of crayons to wax that you are melting for Homemade Candles to give it some color without having to buy other dyes. I don’t recommend a candle made entirely from crayon wax. They don’t melt well and they don’t smell very nice. 🙂

Furniture Paint – Use the browns, blacks, and tans to color in scratches on furniture.

Melted Crayon Art – Lay crayons out on the top of a canvas and use a hairdryer to melt them down the canvas to create fun designs and artwork. The Dollar Store has small canvases that would be great for this and wouldn’t break the bank!

Crayon Recycling – Have plenty of old crayons but don’t want to do anything with them? Send them to Crayon Recycling! They use your broken, old crayons to create fun, new crayons in all shapes and colors.

Donate Them! – If your crayons still have a lot of life in them, you can donate them to a local hospital, shelter, school or daycare. Check with the Crayon Collection to see if there is a restaurant that collects them in your area. They partner with the restaurant to get them to schools nearby that need them.

Crayon Storage

We store all of our “being used” crayons in an old plastic formula container. It works great and I don’t mind if the inside gets all marked up!

I don’t think any piece of an old used crayon will get tossed in the trash again at our house with these old crayon crafts and recycling crayons ideas!

Re-Purposing Old Crayons

Want to make new crayons out of your old crayons instead of using them for a different project?

Put together all your old, broken up crayon pieces. Remove the paper wrappings from them. Use a muffin pan with liners and add in several pieces of the crayons into each spot. Place in the oven at 325 degrees just until melted. Remove from the oven. Can use a toothpick to swirl colors together. Let cool.

Once they have cooled off then they will be set hard again. Remove from liners and use as crayons. You can also melt the crayons on the stovetop or microwave and then pour it into shaped molds. You can buy ice cube trays that have shapes and can use these. Just let them set up until cooled, also. These are super for a stocking stuffer or birthday gift for kids also.

If you enjoyed this post on Uses for Old Crayons, you might also enjoy these:

11 Crafts and Other Uses for Coffee Filters
Milk Jug Bird Feeder: Uses for Milk Jugs
15 Unique Uses for Toothpaste
Uses for Olive Oil

Find even more ideas on our Uses For Page.

What are some of your favorite uses for and crafts for crayons?

This post on Crafts for Old Crayons was originally published on Little House Living in October 2015. It has been updated as of October 2019.