Homemade Block Crayons

Block crayons are great for helping kids develop fine motor skills while coloring! They are also just a ton of fun to use while coloring and drawing. The price is steep for these crayons on Amazon, but we made some for ourselves for a total of $2 with back to school sales! I'll share what we did - it was a fun simple project that Meghan and I were able to do together during Katie's nap.

First, I peeled and broke the crayons - I used 3-4 crayons for each block crayon. I packed the small pieces into a Tovolo square ice cube tray (I used to use these for making and freezing baby food - this did "ruin" on into being only an art project tray). 

I put the crayons in the small convection oven at a low temperature until they were melted through (about 30-45 minutes). Then I removed them and put them into the fridge to cool. 

(I made two sets of crayons - the ones that I did not put in the fridge had some clear wax settle to the top while cooling - that wax had to be scraped off before it would color.)

After they were good and cool, I popped them out of the ice cube trays onto a drying rack to finish curing. After a few hours they were completely hard.

Once the crayons were completely hardened, I tossed them into a basket and we set to work coloring!

It was such an easy process to make these fun crayons! Next, we might experiment with making swirl crayons by not completely melting the wax of multiple colors in the same cube. We'll have to see what other fun ideas we come up with!