Surprise (!) Crayons

Well I attempted a craft this week. Yeeeeeeah you already know how this post ends, right?

So one of the items on our summer bucket list was to make "surprise crayons" (which is what Nathan and Anneliese call those crayons that have a bunch of colors all marbled together). A friend brought some to us last year and the kids like using them to write and color and you never even know what color it will be! Surprise! So, surprise crayons.

Anyway.

We have been collecting the broken bits and bottoms of old crayons for several months, and we finally had enough to melt down into new ones. So we peeled and peeled and picked paper off all those bits (it took a lot longer than we thought it would but Anneliese was my cheerful worker bee) and then I chopped them all up. It was more satisfying than I want to admit.

And then, per the internet's instructions, we filled the bits into some silicone* ice trays the kids had picked out. Lightning bolts and coke (not beer; I am a good mom: coke) bottles for Nathan, and hearts and sausages for Anneliese.

Yes sausages. My child wanted to make surprise crayons in the shape of sausages. I dare you to find another kid like Anneliese. I DARE YOU.

So we popped them in the oven (in the guest house, because my real oven still is not fixed from the fire, don't even get me started) and... this happened:

Uhhhhh yeah.

*Learn from my fail: $1 ice tray molds from the one spot at Target are not, I repeat are not made of real silicone. They do not double as candy molds. If you get them hot, they melt. Like crayons.

So I threw them in the freezer (I don't know, it just seemed like what I should do), decided not to deal with it, and resorted to a summer activity I know I'm good at:

But a couple hours later, I was able to pry a surprisingly large (frozen) handful of pretty crayons from the mess. I re-chopped what I could salvage from the janky ones (PS today Nathan learned the word janky) and had big plans to re-melt them in my metal (metal!) mini muffin pan, but then I remembered we had those ice cube molds from Nathan's lego birthday last summer, which are actual silicone and can be used as candy molds (I remembered thinking to myself when I bought them, who the eff would use these things for anything but ice? damn overachievers).

So... we did that. And it worked just great. Happy ending after all?

anyone want exactly ONE surprise crayon shaped like a sausage?

And that's the story of how I learned if something says Not Dishwasher Safe, you probably can't bake it in the oven either.