Play: Valentine Crayons

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, perhaps you're looking for a cute, non-candy alternative? While you may have seen this one pinned all over the place, I thought I would give it a try to see if it was as easy as it looks.

It is.

Asante and Aly helped find all of our broken crayons, and then took the paper off. Ada picked up the paper that fell on the floor. They took this job very seriously - and did a great job at it!

 

As they were unwrapping, I cut the crayons so that each piece was no longer than 1/2". We randomly placed the pieces of crayon into the (sprayed with vegetable oil) heart-shaped silicon cupcake pan (oh how I love the dollar spot at Target!). It wasn't until after we made these that I read a recommendation that you should avoid browns, dark blues, blacks, dark greens, etc. The best looking crayons are ones that are made of bright colors. We didn't abide by this, and I think they turned out okay...

I baked them at 275 for 14 minutes, but checked them every couple minutes after the 8 minute mark. The best time to take them out is when they just barely are all melted. This helps to keep the colors separated. Here's what they looked like out of the oven. What you see is the backside of the crayon. I was disappointed when I saw it, thinking they did look ugly and that I would remake them with bright crayons only. But after I let them harden (about 10 minutes on the counter then 10 minutes in the freezer) and popped them out (which is super easy to do if you use a silicon pan), they looked nice!

whoops, a tiny spill when taking them out of the oven.

Finally, I printed off these cute valentines from the long thread to put the crayons on, and voila!

Happy Valentines Day!