Sesame Street Crayons

Have you ever thought of making crayons?  And by making, I mean melting down crayons and pouring the wax into molds.  

Do a quick search on etsy for sesame street crayons - $4.50 (plus shipping) for six crayons.  Are you kidding?  A 24 pack of crayola was just selling in back to school sales for 25 - 50 cents.  

I picked up a Sesame Street mold off ebay, for maybe $6, including shipping.  One character uses about 2 crayons (cookie monster and oscar were closer to 4).  So for less than $10 ($6 for the mold and $2.50 for 5 packs of crayons), I made  about 40 characters.  

I did grover in red because he kind of looks like elmo.  And there's a lot of red in a box of crayons.  And purple and orange too.  I had soo many ernies!  He's the only orange one.  Yellow had big bird and bert.  Blue was Cookie Monster and Grover.  I think I only got 4 Oscar the Grouchs...not much green in a box.

Anyway, I packaged them a so that there was only one color in each pack, but 5 characters...although some had two Berts or Grovers b/c they were different colors.

My two year old snapped most of their heads off pretty quick, but whatever. I had fun making them!

P.S.  There are lots of tutorials on making crayons.  Here's what you need to remember:  1. don't get the wax wet.  2. Crayola Crayons begin to soften at around 105 degrees Fahrenheit and they have a melting point between 120-147 degrees Fahrenheit. The melting point is the same for all regular Crayola Crayons, however, because of the density and amount of pigment included in various crayons, the thickness or viscosity of the melted mixture will vary.  Put your crayons in a baby food jar on a candle warmer (mine was the perfect temp) or on a tray in your oven or toaster oven on it's LOWEST setting...mine was warm which is around 150 degrees F. I found that if I took my jars out of the oven and let them cool about 4 - 5 minutes - until I could pick them up with my bare hands - the wax would pour perfectly; if the wax was too warm, it would run down the side of the jar and make a mess. 3. This is messy.  If you are going to freak out about getting wax on your pot holder, you might want to skip this project. 4.  Crayons cool faster in the fridge 5.  Layers don't always work out so well, depending on how cool you let them get.   Some of mine separated, others would out perfectly - see what works for you with one or two before doing an entire tray!