Thanks for the happy memories, Trent and Roberta; and thanks for the interesting information on melting wax, David. :)

I’d love to see some Han Solo crayons…

I did not recognize the name and looked up the gentleman. It is very sad that someone who clearly was a very gifted writer could not find the medical help he needed to defeat his depression and chose to kill himself. It’s even sadder for the family and friends he left behind.

You can also shave the small crayons onto wax paper in patterns, lay another sheet on top and use a warm iron to fuse them – it makes an interesting effect rather like a stained glass window, and can be hung, if you appreciate kid art.

Finally, if you have a lot more than you can use, and want to recycle them, google “Crazy Crayons”. You mail them off, they melt them down and make new crayons, many in very cool shapes, which they sell.

However, since most waxes are composed of volatile compounds, their flashpoint is lower than their boiling point. The same is true of many oils: it was a sad moment in my childhood when I learned that people didn’t actually pour boiling oil on the heads of other people who were trying to invade castles. They couldn’t – although it is possible to boil oil before it burns, this requires carefully controlled conditions that would not by and large have obtained during mediaeval sieges.

Still, even the flashpoint of crayon wax is sufficiently higher than the maximum temperature of a domestic oven that one need not be overly concerned. There is, for example, no danger that if you put crayons and a cake in the oven at the same time, the former will vaporize, re-condense, and form a decorative (though potentially toxic) layer of frosting on the latter. If there were, you can bet that Heston Blumenthal would have done it by now.

First, do NOT use the silicone mold for **anything** else after melting crayons in it. Sure they are non-toxic, but the mold will smell of crayon and my guess is that anything coming out of it would also smell and taste like crayon.

Second, if you’re not into the multicolor crayon deal, then just put reds in one spot, oranges in a separate spot, yellows in a third spot and so on. No need to dump in black and green and yellow and orange and purple all in the same spot.

Third, these make great frugal / free party favors. It’s more fun of course with a seasonal mold. I picked up several after Christmas for 90% off. I have made snowflake and Christmas tree and snowman crayons which are a huge hit with the nieces, nephews and my kids.

Because yes, I hated using those when I was a kid.

“In fact, we’ve actually taken a big pile of crayon stubs from the children of friends who were happy to hand them over at first, until we explained what we were going to do with them. They then seemed to change their minds a bit, thinking that it seemed like a pretty nifty thing to do with their kids.”

So they changed their minds “a bit” about giving you their crayons, and you took them anyway? That doesn’t seem right. Or am I misunderstanding something?