Homemade Holiday Scented Crayons

C was busy coloring in a sheet of gingerbread men, when she commented on how much better it would be if her picture smelled like gingerbread too, and I thought...

...why not?  We've made scented everything else - play dough, finger paint, even wrapping paper...

...why not crayons?  There are plenty of posts out there with instructions for melting, and remolding your children's left over crayon bits. I usually go for the melt-in-the-oven method, but this time I tried out the fast and easy crayons-in-a-can-placed-in-a-bowl-of-boiling-water...

...but added in a few shakes of cinnamon...

...what amounted to about 2 teaspoons of spice per four or five crayons worth of bits...

...before melting the crayon, and pouring the scented wax into a mini cookie cutter with the bottom wrapped in tinfoil...

...to cool and harden...

...into a festive shape.

We followed our cinnamon crayon up with mint (made with two teaspoons of mint extract added to green crayons), and hot chocolate (made with a couple of teaspoons of hot chocolate mix added to brown crayons).  I was all set to make up a black licorice crayon, when I realized I was all out of anise extract, and so decided to call it a night.

I'm sure any of the oils designed for making scented candles would probably work to make scented crayons just as well, but I love finding things right in my own kitchen that can be reworked into fun little presents like these.

You can really smell the mint and cinnamon, even on the paper, though the chocolate is a little more subtle.  I had the Man of the House give them a quick, blind-folded sniff.  He identified the mint right off, and the cinnamon after a second smell, but he guessed the chocolate was vanilla - still a nice scent.

Needless to say, C was thrilled to be able to draw mint trees with cinnamon ornaments and chocolaty...or at least sweet smelling...trunks.

Happy fall from Almost Unschoolers!