5 Of The Best Ways to Reuse Old Crayons For Back To School

It's time to get my organization on for back to school and that means gathering all the supplies. Check out my DIY ideas for upcycling all of those old leftover crayons as you make room for the new school supplies.

While getting supplies ready for my child this new school year I discovered we had hundreds of pieces of broken crayons, and I knew there had to be a way to reuse old crayons. My child wanted a fresh box while we were organizing for back to school, but we didn’t want these old bits and pieces to go to waste either. So, we decided to find some ways to breathe some new life into these crayons. Plus this idea helps me organize my kids craft supplies. Below, you will find five ways to reuse old crayons yourself! Don’t toss those tiny broken bits and pieces. Instead, give these simple and inexpensive ways to reuse old crayons a try and see how easy it is to make them new again!

5 Of The Best Ways to Reuse Old Crayons For Back To School

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1. Play a color sorting game.
Classification and color identification are important skills. Take a muffin tin or ice cube tray and let your child sort the bits of crayons by color. It may be easier to do this activity if the paper is removed from all of the bits first. Little fingers are perfect for this so give that job to your child to do. You can even time them and see how long it takes them to sort the colors if you wish. You can also me it into a counting game!

2. Make crayon shaving art.
Take your crayons and twist them through a pencil sharpener or cheese grater. The bigger boxes of crayons have a sharpener built in! Gather all of the colorful shavings to use for your art. You can draw people and glue the shavings on as hair. Or, make colorful shavings flowers on paper. The variety of colors all look magical together, so get creative. Here is another way that you can make art with the shavings with a hot iron.

3. Create fun shaped crayons.
Take metal candy molds and place a few tiny crayon bits in each. Place in the oven at 325 degrees for 15 minutes or until melted. Allow the wax to cool and pop out the wax when done. Your finished product is a colorful and whimsical crayon in the shape of the candy mold. How cool is that?

4. Make crayon infused watercolors.
Peel the paper off of your crayon pieces. Soak peeled crayons in warm water for up to an hour. You can soak one color per cup of water in order to create a palette of various hues. Give your child a paintbrush once the water has turned the color of the color of the crayon bit and start painting. Your colors will be light and airy!

5.  Make melted crayon art.

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Place crayon bits (peeled) on a piece of canvas. Using a blow dryer heat up the bits, allowing them to melt and spread all over the canvas. Allow to dry well before touching. The finished product is a colorful and abstract piece of artwork that is one of a kind. Check out step by step directions here.

Chances are, you won’t have to look far for a handful of colorful crayons bits. Dig yours out and give some of these ideas a try. They are a great way to repurpose old ones that were otherwise destined for the trash. You might want to buy new crayons for the upcoming school year, but don’t forget these tips if you need some ideas for what to do with the old. Do you have any ideas on ways to reuse old crayons? We’d love to hear them!

Looking for more great ways to repurpose items for back to school? Check out our 5 Upcycled Lunch Ideas!

How do you reuse old crayons for back to school? What kind of projects do you create? Tell me in the comments!

Copyright: Vector Image by StockUnlimited


21 thoughts on “5 Of The Best Ways to Reuse Old Crayons For Back To School”

  1. These are really great ideas! I have a bunch of crayons that are broken and aren’t used very much, so this is a great list of things to make from them! Thanks for sharing!

  2. You just gave me some pretty cool and interesting ideas as I volunteer for a kids center and I bet they would love to play. I am gonna try to make it fun. When I was a kid, my mom and I we used to cut all my crayons into small pieces, put them in a jar, we were saying we were making rainbows. It was so much fun to look at those colorful jars!
    Hugs,
    Rally

  3. We always have broken and used up crayons laying around. I have never heard of the water color crayons. I am definitely going to have to try that next time I gather them up to throw away. My 5 yr old would totally get a kick out of that.

  4. I remember how many broken crayons I used to have when I was growing up. I never heard of crayon infused water colors. I think all of these uses would be fun to do with kids over the summer.

  5. These are some great ideas. They all sound fun and like a child would enjoy them. Almost makes me wish my kids still loved their crayons so we could give these ideas a try.

  6. All great tips on how to recycle old and broken crayons. When I was a kid I always wanted new ones instead of old one since the old ones didn’t look attractive though they painted the same lol.

  7. Wow! These are all fantastic ideas! I’ve never heard of the watercolor idea. I’m definitely going to have a go with it and share it with my staff. I think the kids would love sorting the colors, then placing it in the jars maybe over the weekend, and returning to something magical. This would be perfect for kindergarten students.

  8. Hmm this sounds interesting. I normally let my kids use their crayons until they become nubs and I don’t buy many because they always get a box free from various places that we go like restaurants or the grocery store.

  9. I really like all of these great ideas for left over crayons. We too found a ton around the house. We tried doing the canvas art project this past summer, but although my older daughter loved it, the four year old was not happy. He could not touch the hot glue gun and holding the dryer was boring ( his words, LOL). I do like the idea of crayon infused water colours though! I think it would be fairly simple to set up and the four year old would love it!

    Thanks for these great ideas, Suz

  10. Great ideas! For Easter last year I had old mini cake bunny tins so I melted the old crayons and made bunny crayons for my kids they LOVED it and it keep them so entertained!

  11. All too often, I just throw away old/broken crayons – not anymore! I am feeling inspired to be a little creative with the kids and try one of these ideas.

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