Earth Day is April 22nd!

Earth Day is coming up and I want to try to pay hommage to the Earth from now until the end of the month with as much eco-friendly ideas, activities & crafts.

My first idea that I want to get families together on is the fact that trying to reduct our waste output is important to where we can go in the future. One way we can do this is by practicing the
3 Rs: Reducing, Reusing & Recycling.

My family craft is to create:

Upcycled Crayons
All over the internet everyone is blogging about taking the old crayons that are maybe broken or stubs and giving them new life through upcycling them into new crayons.
The Princess & I first tried this as Valentine gifts for the family she also of course claimed some for herself. She really enjoyed helping break the crayons and combine colours in the muffin tins. She was taken back by the crayons that came out once they had cooled. Here is how we did it:

Upcycled Crayons:
1. First, gather your supplies (this would be great way to finish off the school year my celebrating the beginning of summer and the end of school through the melting down of the old crayons from school and making new ones to be used for the summer), you'll need old crayons with the wrappers removed; muffin tin (metal/ silicone); cooking spray (to keep them from sticking) or cupcake liners or waxed paper squares (cut in  about 6"X6" to line the tins; an oven and a timer.
2.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
3.Break up crayons and divide them in the cups of the muffin tin in the colour combinations of your choice. *We found that there are some colours that don't really work well together, like peach and yellow, and browns and blacks. But it really also depends on the wax content of the crayons. We found that the Crayola brand and the Rose Art brands are the better when it comes to wax content, some brands have too much oil that doesn't allow the colours to come through as well.
4. Once broken crayons are in the tins, place in the oven for 20 minutes or depending on if you have an oven that runs hotter, until the crayons are melted.
5. Remove them from the oven and place either on a cooling rack or in the freezer (speeds up the cooling process) until the new upcycled crayons are solid.
6. Turn out of the muffin tin cups, and remove the paper if used.
7. Hand them over to the kids with some paper and see their reaction to the new found colour-bration. It will be something you will wanna try too because it really is nostalgic.
Marie at Make and Takes blogs about how she recycled crayons along with variations to her process and if you scroll down the post she pastes other blogs that also brought old boring crayons new life full of colour-plosion.

I hope that you'll give this a try and teach you children about recycling and being eco-friendly even when they are just hanging out.

You can also try different shaped muffin tins and silicone ice cube trays to create homemade gifts for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Birthdays, Party Favours, etc.

A great way to get you kids away from the commercial gifts and feeling proud of something they made for the receiver.

Hope I inspired you to get a little greener for the Earth!

Angela

A Mama with 2 Cents Worth to Share