Homemade Beeswax Crayons

I recently came across a recipe on another blog for making homemade crayons. Essentially they were beeswax crayons, made with beeswax, soap and homemade (plant based) dyes. It didn't take long to gather the ingredients after talking to my neighbor who's mother just happened to be a bee keeper! Basically you need equal parts beeswax and soap (grated). You melt down the beeswax (you'll need a double boiler - or as others suggested a large pot filled with water and a soup can submerged in the water), add the soap until it too has melted and add your food coloring. Essentially from here you can move the hot wax to a variety of vessels - whatever your desire may be for drying. (note: I used the soup can the first time and the second time a stainless steel bowl submerged in water... my double boiler was unfortunately broken... it was a pain stirring over the steam from the boiling water, so I'd recommend trying a double boiler if you have the option)

These were the instructions I found on a series of blogs, so it seemed simple enough until I got started. My first try was a horribly unsuccessful mess. The beeswax (which I put in as one big glob) melted quickly and easily enough. When I added the soap (I used a Castile) though, things got thick and chunky and the soap pretty much refused to melt. After what seemed like hours (but in actuality was much less) of trying and stirring, my dearest Barbie (she was there helping the first time around) and I forged on and added the dye. Which leads to the next problem...

I had made my own dyes in advance. I used blueberries, strawberries, carrots and something green (I forget what now). I basically boiled the fruit/veggies in minimal water extracting the color and then continued to boil until most of the water had evaporated and we were left with a condensed color. When I added the coloring to the soap/wax mixture it hardly absorbed the color - this is probably 100% my fault as I probably F-ed up with making my dyes. Essentially at the end of the first try, I had totally failed. I used half of my beeswax, a whole bar of soap and all of my homemade dyes.

I didn't give up though. Later that night I tried again. This time, I grated the beeswax (I really don't think this did anything) and used slightly less soap and added the soap in small bits melting each addition before adding more. Towards the end, the soap began to give me trouble, so I stopped stirring and started whisking (a great decision) and things sprang back into action. At this point I was left with the natural soap/beeswax color and let it harden until I could decide what to do about tinting.

I decided about a week later that the solution was to just try regular food dye - if I wanted to really make them totally from scratch later, then I'd first need to make sure the crayon mixture worked anyway before ruining more dyes. I then began the process of melting down the wax/soap combo in small sections. I discovered at this point that any small pieces of soap that remained melted better in the small sections. So, in future attempts, I'll probably make smaller portions at a time to see if it helps with the soap melting problem - in addition to the wisk. Immediately upon adding the food coloring, the wax took on deep tones. I quickly transfered them to a silicone cupcake pan to cool. I also tried rolling a few into a crayon shape as it dried a bit, but I think I'll need to figure out a way to make a mold for it to work better next time.

Yesterday was the big test. I rolled out Jude's paper and let him go to town with the crayons. They were a little softer than I'd like, but I think that's because I added less soap than the first time (now that I know how to avoid problems with the soap - I'll add more later). He seemed to find the flat/round shape interesting. I put his regular Crayola brand crayons down with them to see what he'd chose and he seemed to go back and forth between the two. I could tell there was something about the others that kept bring him back.

I even used them a bit myself to see how it worked. The were a little too soft and therefore left some gloppy spots, didn't draw in the thin, straight, dark lines that we're accustomed to with Crayola, but they worked well! I'm pretty sure it's something that I would do again - maybe when Jude is older and can help... or at least add the coloring.