When your big brother starts school, you are suddenly left alone. For the first time in your entire life you get to play with your toys without having to share, you can play with his toys without him getting angry, you can watch barbie movies, and dora... life is wonderful.
Then, about 4 weeks goes by, and you are bored. b.o.r.e.d.
Thank goodness it isn't 100+ degrees in Oklahoma anymore, and thank goodness mom's foot isn't broken anymore, because I have one of those bored little sisters on my hands. Let's face it, when you are 30-something, playing with barbie dolls is the last thing on my to do list. You have to come up with something creative and fun, something that will keep a little one's attention long enough for me to get through
Thanks to the wonderful world of Pinterest I stumbled upon this project. I couldn't find directions, so I googled and sort of piece milled some together. It's a wonderful project you can do with your kiddos. Seriously, worth it.
{you must overlook the crap photo bombing my pics. Pillows, toys, rouge feet... sorry!}
Step 1: Find a super cute, super willing helper. One that is creative will help, but any will work. This one was so stinkin excited. When I told her she was going to get to pull the paper off of crayons and *gasp* break them...she was all in.
Step 2: Gather up the crayon box/basket. In our house, you will find crayons in crazy places. Pillowcases, purses, daddy's work boots. Emileigh is a packer. Sometimes, it's funny, sometimes it will drive you crazy. This was the basket we chose to work with.
**note: I need to be honest. I'm a crayon snob. Crayola is the ONLY thing I will buy. However, other folks gift crayons to my kiddos, they pick them up in restaurants, etc. All of the crayons get dumped into the basket... The next time we make crayons, I will pull out the Crayola crayons and only use them... I'll show you why a little later down the post.**
Step 3: This was Emileigh's favorite part, peeling the paper from the crayons. She LOVED that she could pull the teeny-tiny pieces of paper off and not get into trouble. She sat there for a solid 45 minutes working on it, watching cartoons. I'm serious, I got some major brain-rot television shows catch up time.
Step 4: Collect your molds. I pulled out the hearts and the star-looking ones. They are silicone, found at walmart, hobby lobby, michael's, etc. The silicone won't hold on to the heat, so you won't burn the wax. Plus, popping the finished product is easy peasy. We ended up just using the heart molds. Yesterday, while looking for glitter at the walmarts, I saw some mini-gingerbread shape molds. I'll be getting those soon. That will make GREAT Christmas gifts for Blayne's school friends.
Step 5: Break those crayons! Emileigh's next favorite step, hands down. I used this project as a teaching opportunity. As we pulled the paper off of crayons, we talked about the color, then we broke it and put the crayon in the cup assigned for that color. She did great! We talked about how colors can be in all different shades, but still orange, red, etc. Plus, it made for really cool crayons at the end. :)
- Just lay those crayons in the cup. Easy... I'm not even kidding. We filled the cups until the entire bottom was covered, and we tried to get the amount equal in each cup. We didn't put much science into it, just eyed it and had fun.
Step 6: Once you have the crayons in the molds and ready to melt, turn the oven to about 200-225 degrees.
It will take about an hour for the crayons to completely melt together. It looks wicked cool while they melt, my crayon maker (emileigh) kept asking to look at them. She thought it was so neat that her crayons melted. I'm not going to lie, it was fun watching her.
This is what they looked like about 30 minutes melting. The bigger crayons took a bit longer, but that was okay, it make the end product amazing.
Step 7: When the crayons are completely, or mostly melted, take them out of the oven and set them on the counter to cool. I actually stuck them in the fridge for the last 10 minutes or so of the cooling process.
When they are completely cooled, pop them out. They were super easy to pop out. Check out that marbling effect. Isn't it COOOOOLLLL!!! It's just different shades of the same color. LOVE.
Next time, we will put different colors together and see how that turns out. Eeek- I can't wait.
**See the white part at the bottom of this picture? It's wax. Cheap crayons use different coloring and wax so the color sort of bailed. If you stick with crayola, I think you'll avoid this. Since it was just a project for our enjoyment, we left it. If we were going to gift these, I would cut that part off. Be a crayon snob. Buy crayola!**
Dude- see how COOL this looks? They were pretty big, too. I love how the blue one came out, LOVE.
Here is my favorite little girl with her new crayons. She loved them, she still does. She colors with them all of the time. Best project yet!
Thanks for coming to my blog and checking out how to make this awesome project. If you came via pinterest, leave a comment or your blog address! I love to find new awesome blogs to follow!
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