It isn't the case now, but when I was at junior school I used to be rather arty. Well I loved art, especially crayons, I don't claim I ever made anything any good with them. I did make a small[1] fortune 'recycling' crayons.
We had the bog-standard colours in the class supplies, occasionally there'd be a silver or gold crayon too. There were always arguments about who got to use what colours.
For register and the like we used to sit on the carpet in the corner of the classroom, my place of preference was right up against the bookshelves. Underneath the shelves ran a large hot water pipe.
I'm not sure how, but I discovered that a nub of crayon placed on this pipe would melt and drip onto the floor, forming first a cone then a squat cylinder. This made a mess of the carpet, so I took to placing some paper under the pipe.
My epiphany was realising that I could melt different crayons together to form colours (mostly muddy browns) and crayon types that had never existed before.
Now I only had about half-hour per day to set up my experiments and check on the results of the last experiment. This being the time we sat on the carpet and not at tables.
I figured out how to melt the wax to form a solid core of one colour and then drip another colour over it to form a cladding. Drawing with these was great, you never knew what you were going to get.
My classmates started asking where I got these new crayons from. I told them I'd bought them (the daft things kids believe) and offered to sell them for (I think) 5p each.
Before long I was scrounging odds and sods of crayons from home, other classes, anywhere - all to make more to sell in the class and playground.
This continued until the heating was turned off for spring. Next year I was in a different class with no hot pipe, so a profitable business fell my the wayside.
One of the super mommies that I know did this for Valentine gifts - cut the crayons in heart shapes, of course and even corded her own little books with string and paper.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 01:58 pm (UTC)[1] I was about 7, a fortune at that age is rather small.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 02:25 pm (UTC)We had the bog-standard colours in the class supplies, occasionally there'd be a silver or gold crayon too. There were always arguments about who got to use what colours.
For register and the like we used to sit on the carpet in the corner of the classroom, my place of preference was right up against the bookshelves. Underneath the shelves ran a large hot water pipe.
I'm not sure how, but I discovered that a nub of crayon placed on this pipe would melt and drip onto the floor, forming first a cone then a squat cylinder. This made a mess of the carpet, so I took to placing some paper under the pipe.
My epiphany was realising that I could melt different crayons together to form colours (mostly muddy browns) and crayon types that had never existed before.
Now I only had about half-hour per day to set up my experiments and check on the results of the last experiment. This being the time we sat on the carpet and not at tables.
I figured out how to melt the wax to form a solid core of one colour and then drip another colour over it to form a cladding. Drawing with these was great, you never knew what you were going to get.
My classmates started asking where I got these new crayons from. I told them I'd bought them (the daft things kids believe) and offered to sell them for (I think) 5p each.
Before long I was scrounging odds and sods of crayons from home, other classes, anywhere - all to make more to sell in the class and playground.
This continued until the heating was turned off for spring. Next year I was in a different class with no hot pipe, so a profitable business fell my the wayside.
[1] probably much less than a fiver in total.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 02:27 pm (UTC)Gah! =)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-07 02:37 pm (UTC)I'm sure we must have a zillion old crayon stubs. LB loves to snap her crayons in half, so she has more.
:-)