How to Paint With Recycled Crayons

Number of Crayons Needed:  Depends on number of colors of paint you want and how much paint you want to make

Other Materials Needed:  A metal muffin tin, an oven or toaster oven, crayons, a bowl with water, Q-tips, paper

Directions: 

Hello!  This is the North Hill robotics team giving you instructions for a fun crayon craft.  We are doing this because we don’t want you putting your crayons into the trash.  Did you know that everything that goes into the trash eventually will end up in a landfill?  Crayons can’t decompose in landfills, so crayons hurt the environment.  Let’s get started!

Step 1:  Gather your materials.

Step 2:  Preheat your oven to 350˚F.  Set up your painting area and have your paper and Q-tips ready.  The melted crayon paint hardens fast once it comes out of the oven.

Step 3:  Grab your crayons and peel the paper off them.  If you are having trouble peeling off the paper, you can soak the crayons in water.  Sort the crayons by color and break them into tiny pieces.  Put them in the muffin tin.

Step 4:  Once your oven is ready, put the muffin tin in the oven.  Also, set a timer for 10 minutes.

Step 5: After the 10 minutes, take the tray out of the oven.  Now you have your crayon paint.  Set your paint down by the paper and Q-tips and start painting your pictures.

Warning:  The paint is going to be hot, so be really careful!

Future Ideas:  Now that you have your paint, you can use your imagination to paint what things you want and mix together what colors you want.

Here are some ideas that you can do with your paint:

• Instead of making streaks with the Q-tip, you can paint with dots by dabbing the Q-tip on the paper.  This will make your picture look spotty.
• You can layer your painting.    Paint, let the paper dry, and then paint again.  You can use this to make 3-D mountains or any other 3-D objects.

Note:  Eventually your paint will harden.  When it does, you will need to put the paint/muffin tin back into the oven for 10 more minutes.  This will melt the crayon paint again.