You Color My World

Alternately titled: Reduce Reuse Recycle. I couldn't decide, so you get both. You're welcome.

Elisabeth and I worked hard to make her Valentines by hand this year. We made 23 of them, and we didn't purchase a single item! We have world's largest bag of crayons in our house -- it's where all of our crayons go when they enter our house because I could no longer stand having 13 opened boxes laying around. It works well and it shows us what a ridiculous number of crayons we own so that I don't get tempted to buy any. 

So, we decided to Go Green for Valentine's day and Reduce those crayons, Reusing them by turning them into wonderfully unique pieces of art that could be shared with Elisabeth's friends.  And although there was none involved in this project, we Recycle every day!

I think they turned out pretty darn cute, don't you? Of course I can't take the credit for the project, it came from Disney's Family Fun magazine.

Here's how we did it.

Peel the wrappers off your broken (or not) crayons. FYI, the cheapies that you get at the restaurants are MUCH easier to peel.  Less glue.

If they aren't already, break up the crayons into little pieces. A meat mallet works wonders and gets a good deal of frustration out!

Put the pieces into tiny heart shaped muffin tins. Ours is a silicone Wilton 24ct pan.  Fill it up, because they're going to melt down more than you think they will.

Bake at 250 for 10 to 15 minutes. We needed the full 15 but that's because of the silicone pan. I think.

When they are melted take 'em out of the oven and let cool. Then pop them out! If you have a hard time getting them out, place the pan in the freezer for a few minutes and they will slide right out. This is a good tip for candles, too.

Write out your favorite punny saying on circles of paper - we chose You Color My World - in fun colors. We discovered as we went along that the ones written in multiple colors were the coolest. Make sure to leave room in the center for the heart.  Have your child sign their name on the back. Make sure you do this before the next step!

Attach some thick foam tape to the back of the heart and place in the center of your circle.

Voila!

It took us more time than it would take to buy, say, Pixy Stix Valentines and sign them, but I think these are super cute. And it was a good lesson about saving our planet, too. Oh -- and best of all, it was a great bonding experience!

I just found out tonight that Elisabeth needs another 25 Valentines for her daycare party as well. YIKES! So excuse me, I'm going to go peel some more crayons.