The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #282021 Crafting – Upcycling Broken Crayons!
Happy new year! To start us off, I thought we’d combine resin casting, recycling, and creativity in one project – making crayons! Whaaa, you say? What’s that have to do anything?
Well, let’s find out!
If you have or had kids, chances are you have some old / broken crayons around. I gathered up a broken bits, took off the paper wrappings, and …
… tried to enlist the help of one of my children to help with the latter part. It occupied said child nicely …
… for about 10 minutes. Then I was left to complete the boring part …
I used the same silicone molds I used for casting resin. The silicone performed wonderfully under heat (350 degree F x 10 min +/- 3-5 min until the crayons are all melted). Basically, you cram a bunch of crayon bits inside (more is better, the wax will melt down; you want the wax to be thick enough to hold. A silicone cookie tray would be better, actually, since they tend to be deeper, meaning you can cram in more crayons bits). As you can see below, just like with resin casting, bubbles rise to the surface.
Once they start to solidify, we do need to wait a bit for everything to cool, though you can stick the mold in the refrigerator to speed up the cooling process.
The synth on the top, as you can see, is an example of what happens when the wax doesn’t melt fully and air bubbles get in the way. So this one, despite loving the colors, I broke back up and redid (really easy to do).
Some of the final products – the ones to the left were done with cookie cutters. You can totally use metal cookie cutters but be aware they they may leak wax out the bottom. You can get around this by putting clay around the edges and using a heat gun to apply focused heat to the crayons in side the cookie cutter. That is how the orange leaf on the left was made.
Overall, a fun project to do with kids, especially if you’re stuck inside on a cold or rainy day, folks are sick, or you’re just waiting out the pandemic like so many of us are. And if you don’t have kids but are feeling a bit strapped for cash after the holidays or the havoc the past year has done to the economy (at least in the US), just head over to Etsy and see how much people charge for handmade crayons. Holy upcycle, Batman.
What can I say … don’t hate! Create! 🙂
If you still have a cassette player, take advantage of the following deal and be transported to another world! SALE! While supplies last, grab Long Ago Not So Far Away on cassette! Just $1/tape!
https://ko-fi.com/s/5579db9b27
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
As always, thanks for listening!
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