Lately I’ve been on a natural art supplies kick. It all started with finding those beautiful Stockmar crayons which led me to make my own scented beeswax crayons. Then, I saw that the same company also makes modeling clay too, so of course I had to try and make my own! This recipe is a conglomeration of ideas I found online for making your own beeswax clay, with my own adaptations. Check out this post on making modeling clay with natural colorants!
Modeling Beeswax Recipe
- 1 cup beeswax pellets
- 3 teaspoons of coconut or olive oil (most use olive, I used coconut and it smells awesome!)
- 2 teaspoons of lanolin (this can be found in the baby section, most nursing creams contain mostly lanolin)
- Non-toxic eyeshadow, food coloring, old crayons, powdered paint for color (I used eye shadow)
- Silicone mold
Set up a double boiler, if you don’t own one, you can fill a large pot with water and place a smaller pot with your ingredients inside of it. This helps insure that your wax will receive nice even heat and not burn. Throw all of the ingredients in and stir until it is liquid. I made the mistake of trying to stir the ingredients in separately in another bowl, removed from heat, it just hardened in to a mess and I had to re-liquify it.
Aurora wanted to help, so I thought we could mix in a separate bowl, don’t do this.
Once everything is evenly mixed, pour it in to your mold, I would recommend not filling it full, rather only 1/4 full would have made it easier to play with right away. You could also make a batch with different colors by melting a little wax and the oils at a time then adding a new color to each batch.
Once it has hardened, it will feel very firm, but will become malleable in your hands as they heat it up. Play with it for a little bit until you’re able to squish and roll and really mold the clay before giving it to youngsters, lest they become frustrated with it. It will harden up if not played with, but will not dry out, it is infinitely reusable!
It feels really nice in your hands too, I used coconut oil so it smells great and every time I play with it I love knowing that all of the healing properties of coconut oil are being massaged in to my hands!
This is another gift, along with the scented beeswax crayons that I plan to save as a stocking stuffer for my little artists. Have fun making a batch of your own with or for your own budding Michelangelo!
