Crayon Hearts

This year both Leah and Lincoln have kids in their classes with serious food allergies - and I would rather not contribute to the sugar high that Valentine's Day has become - so this year we made crayon hearts. Finally! A use for all of those little broken crayon pieces that you can't quite bring yourself to throw away, but that nobody can use for coloring anymore...

The kids helped by peeling off the wrappers and separating the colors. Then we melted them in vegetable cans in a pot of boiling water. Once the crayons were melted, we stirred them with craft sticks to even out the colors and poured layers in a silicone heart mold, waiting for each layer to harden before pouring the next.

If you use a silicone mold (you can usually find them at Target in their dollar section during the holidays), you can also just put the broken crayon pieces in the mold and melt them in the oven at 250 for 20 minutes. Let them cool and harden in the oven as well. This will result in a more swirly pattern and you can mix colors to make cool designs, but you must use all the same brand of crayons or you'll get weird results because different brands have different wax/color ratios.

If you use the pouring method, your molds don't have to be silicone (although the silicone works better). I've also tried using these ice cube molds from IKEA - they work pretty well, but I think the wax leaks through because the ones I've used now have a waxy residue on both the inside and the outside of the mold. This method also evens out the consistency of different brands of crayons.

If you try something else that works or have any other ideas for using up crayon bits, let me know... thanks to a schoolteacher grandma, we have LOTS of crayons to use up :)