Crayon Hearts

This weekend the hubby went away and the boys and I had some Quality Time together. I would just like to say how much respect and admiration I have for actual single parents, especially those who have to work one or more jobs.  I knew my husband and I were a good team, but you just don't realize how much you depend on each other until your team mate skips town.

Anyway, we did do a few activities besides Netflix...  I had bought a silicone heart mould at the dollar store before Valentine's Day and the boys have a bucket of crayons they never use - they are straight up marker dudes.  I had seen lots of tutorials about melting down crayons and when I suggested it they were pretty excited.  I won't describe the whole process, since there are lots of tutorials online, but the essentials are:

1. Take paper off crayons: this is kind of tedious and your kids will abandon you and your nails will never be the same again.
2. Break crayons into little pieces:  or not so little, depending on your hand strength.
3. Put them in the silicone mould: if you want hearts that are actually shaped like hearts, you may want to skip the dollar store and invest at, say, Walmart.  (Our mould was promptly chucked in the garbage after this craft, and I am relieved to say that none of it remained in the oven.)
4. Back up 3 steps and set the oven to 200 - 250 degrees.
5. Once your oven has heated, put the mould on a baking sheet and pop 'er in.  Plug your nose and watch them melt, slowly, for about 15 - 20 minutes.  Open windows.  Wonder how many toxins are in crayons and look worriedly at your children.
6. Put them on the back porch to cool down.
7. Ooh and Aah as you pop them out of the mould and watch your kids colour diligently until they remember they don't like crayons, get bored, and go watch Netflix.

The weird thing was how the pigment sank to the bottom and all the extra (filler?) wax pooled at the top.  I assume that these were probably not top-of-the-line crayons... I didn't remember anyone mentioning this online.

Me being me, I took out a paring knife and shaved off the extra wax. Then I noticed the shaving were kind of pretty so I took photos.  Then I went and got my hair dryer and experimented with melting the shavings onto paper and canvas.  They looked sort of pretty until they got quite liquidy and the green overpowered all the other colours.  The result sort of looked like someone barfed on a canvas.  I didn't take photos.  But it was kind of fun to get my hands dirty and play around. I also noticed that the heart crayons made it into their stories and play for the rest of the weekend (I think at one point they were alien space ships) so I am calling it a successful craft.  :)

Homemade Valentines

I am not even sure if these are blog-worthy, but this weekend Will and I made valentines for his class.  I had much grander visions for this, but then I checked them on the 'worth it' chart, and scaled down accordingly.  This was about what William and I could handle, and I wanted to make sure he was involved.

I cut a stamp out of a potato for Will to use.  At first I made a car, thinking I could do a ghetto version of Jen's amazing valentine, but Will told me it didn't look enough like a car.  No problem, did he want it rounder?  Bigger?  A truck instead? We worked out some drawings - turns out he wanted separate wheels, headlights and tail lights, people inside, and could I make it a Toyota?  Yeah.... how about a heart?  I can only do so much with a potato.

We got a great production line going and Will filled them out for his classmates, making sure he had one for himself.  They may not be much to look at, but he LOVES them and it was all I could do to keep him from bringing them in today.  Plus, it kept him occupied for a good hour, and it was fun to "collaborate" with him. :)