Heart-Shaped Crayons

Yummy note: Initially I wasn't intending on blogging about this fun craft I did with the kids, but it got such rave reviews from Alicia, I figured it was worth a post. Alicia is really into the Valentine's day theme the last few days, especially since her kindergarten class has been talking about their Valentine's day party for like the last week. We just got all of her Valentine's finished up and I decided to do a fun craft with her. I started the unwrapping project earlier in the morning and waited until she got home from school to pop them into the oven so she could help with that part. We decided to "mix" it up a bit!  We used some of our old crayons and made some new fun heart-shaped ones instead! It was such a fun way to get rid of all those pieces and recycle all of those old crayons. Check out a few of the links below for more information on how to create your own heart-shaped crayons! Happy Valentine's Day! 
http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/crayon-hearts-671639/ or http://www.ehow.com/how_2125332_make-heart-shaped-crayons.html

Heart-Shaped Crayons

Directions: 

First, make sure all of the paper wrappers are removed from your crayon pieces. An x-acto knife works well to cut a slit into each crayon wrapper for easier removal, just be careful not to let the kiddos help with this part. Place unwrapped crayon pieces into a pan of choice size and shape. I used a cheap silicon one I found in the dollar section of the Target store actually. Just note, I've heard that baking crayon pieces may ruin your pan, so please don't use your best pans to do this in, just in case the wax from the crayons can not be removed. 

Before

Bake in a 200 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. Just make sure to periodically check on them, as some batches are quicker than others depending on the sizes of crayon. Remove them from the oven and let them cool completely before removing them or else they might break or not set properly. Once cool, peel them out of the pan.

After

Alicia was stacking her newly finished crayons. She was pretty excited with how "cool" they looked. 

Ben working on breaking some more crayons for us for future use :P  lol.. he's just learning now, not to eat the crayons. :)