Valentines 2010
Sometime last year I found a project on the Great and Glorious Internet for making crayon heart Valentines and I saved it up for months. I really looked forward to actually doing this with Lucas! Last year, our Valentines for Lucas’s classmates were wonderful and handmade. They also took days and days of concentrated effort, which was (in hindsight) more than Lucas really was ready for at 6.5 years old. I wanted to do something easier this year, and this project turned out to be perfect for three reasons: 1) we used up years’ worth of crayon stubs; 2) they truly are beautiful and useful treasures; and 3) I invested in a groovy Wilton mini heart muffin pan that I can use for all kinds of goodies, not just crayons!
Before. We stripped the crayon stubs of their paper and *gasp* broke crayons into smaller pieces on purpose.
We filled up my groovy new silicone baking pan (safe up to 500° F), set it atop another cookie sheet covered with a sheet of aluminum foil (just in case), and popped it in the oven for 20 minutes at 250° F. We found the crayons (of mixed brands and qualities) melted at different rates. It took 20 minutes for them all to melt. We removed the pan and let the melted hearts cool. When they were completely cool, they easily popped out of the silicone shapes. You can actually turn the heart inside out and the crayon comes out perfect and unmarred.
After. Here are the first two batches, which we actually finished in January. Aren’t they lovely? We made 36 of these gorgeous multicolored crayon hearts—more than a class set.
We found the pigment sank to the bottom (the top in this picture). The paraffin wax of the crayons was less dense than the pigment and it floated to the top (or bottom in the photo). They have an interesting stripy effect when viewed from the side, no? The paraffin side of our hearts doesn’t color all that well, but we take comfort in knowing it will be useful for magical watercolor paintings. A child can draw with the clearish wax, then watercolor over the wax drawing for a batik result. Anyway, I’m really curious whether we’d get a better result that colors on both sides if we used higher quality crayons.
Here are Lucas’s finished Valentines 2010, wrapped, signed, and ready to go for Friday’s exchange at school. I hope the children like them. I think they will be a hit!
February 11, 2010 at 10:21 am
No WAY! We did the exact same thing except Haven’s has glitter in them. Great minds think alike. =)
February 11, 2010 at 10:35 am
Yay! More yummy crayon love to go around. Hmm … those two kids of ours! They are having a lot of parallel experiences this year (I am thinking of Santa Lucia especially). And by the way, Lucas adores the book she made for him for Christmas. He won’t let me look at it; it’s full of private things.