Weekend with the Grands: Making Heart-shaped Crayons

I am such a fortunate grandma to live near my grandchildren.  Their mom is a single mom and works the night shift so 3 nights a week I sleep over at their house, plus two weekends a month they come to stay the weekend at our house.  This allows mom to work nights and sleep during the day without needing to put the kids in daycare.  I cherish my time with them.  On the weekends at our home I try to have something special planned as our main activity for the weekend.  This weekend we planned to make heart-shaped Crayons to give as Valentine's Day gifts in Little Miss' kindergarten class instead of sugary treats.  I try to encourage healthy habits in the kids while they are young enough for it to become second nature to them.  They are very receptive to learning healthy habits at this age (4 and almost 6).  If I say, "Where shall we eat out today?" they use to say "McDonald's", but now they say, "not McDonald's because that is all junky food." (Sorry McD's but it is true.)

The kids were very excited about making their own crayons.  I bought two silicone candy molds, one in heart shapes and the other in Hello Kitty shapes since Little Miss loves anything Hello Kitty.  I just happen to have about 500 thick crayons laying around for about a year.  I found an awesome deal on a huge bulk box of crayons that I couldn't pass up.  A grandma never knows when she might need 500 crayons...thank goodness Mr Holly doesn't question my sanity when I buy such things.  I wanted the kids to feel like they really did make these themselves so I did the knife work and the handling of hot pans but they did all the rest.  If you're looking for a fun project to do with your grandkids, the basic instructions are posted in the captions of the pictures.  If you don't have enough broken pieces laying around already, you can purchase big boxes of crayons at the dollar store for practically nothing.

First we remove the wrappers.  Tip: use a sharp knife to score along one side to make removing the paper very easy.  If any paper sticks you can shave it off with the knife.

Score the side of each crayon so it's easy for little hands (and old ones too) to snap into four or five pieces. This reminded me of snapping green beans with my great-grandma when I was a child. Tip: place parchment paper under your work area to save on clean up time afterwards...tiny bits of crayon stuck to my table. I was able to get it off but save yourself the extra work.

We sorted our pieces in different bowls but you really don't have to do this.

Place the broken pieces into the molds. Completely fill the molds because they will melt down quite a bit. You can mix n match the colors however you like.  We liked a bunch of colors so that when you use the crayon the color will gradually change as you draw.

Place the silicone molds on to a cookie sheet and place in the oven set at about 220 degrees.  Bake about 20-40 minutes (checking every 10 minutes), until the crayons are melted and liquid is about level. CAREFULLY remove the cookie sheet from the oven and let it cool.  We were in a hurry so after a few minutes of cooling I carefully placed the molds into a shallow baking dish filled with about an inch of cold water.  This speeds up the cooling/solidifying process.  We were then able to remove the crayons in about 15 minutes.

Here are the finished Heart-Shaped and Hello Kitty Shaped Crayons! The kids were so proud of their work.

It was a very fun weekend with a big bag full of handmade crayons ready for Valentines day gift giving.  The kids were anxious to get home to mom on Sunday evening to show her what they had made 'all by themselves' (almost).  I am already planning our next weekend adventure on the new kids quad!  What adventures have you shared with your grands?