Recycled Crayon Valentines.

Good morning, readers! Happy Sunday to you and yours. I am currently sipping coffee (with coconut oil (my latest obsession) mixed in. So good!) while listening to the rain pitter patter against the window. My favorite kind of morning. Well, besides the rain part. Rain in the spring, summer and fall? Love it. Rain in the middle of the winter? Yuck.

I have some rather shocking news to share. Are you ready?

The other day I was feeling crafty.

As in, I wanted to spend my time working on a craft project with a particular end result in mind. And if you know me, you know this is not normal.

Olive wanted to make something for Valentine's Day, so I went with it. I got my craft on.

We decided on recycled crayons. You've probably seen them floating around Pinterest, Etsy, Target, everywhere over the last several years. Obviously we're a little behind in all things crafty.

With it being a Valentine's Day project, we really wanted to make rainbow heart crayons. So we went off in search of a heart shaped muffin tin, silicon mold, something. I was hoping to find this. And we struck out. We found a silicone mold at Michaels but the hearts were too big for our needs. But I bought it anyway because too big for heart crayons means just the right size for heart brownies. Woot! In the end, we decided to just use a mini muffin pan. And since we already had one at home, we didn't need to purchase one. Score.

Olive and Penny grabbed our crayon box and started going to town taking off all the wrappers. I am pretty sure this was the best day of Penny's life. She was given the ok to pick the wrappers off. She kept asking "I rip the paper? It okay to rip the paper, mama??" In her world, just for that day, I was the coolest mom EVER. I preferred to use a knife and slit the wrapper end to end. But to each their own.

Our crayons were an assortment of old, broken and well loved Crayolas, restaurant crayons rescued from the bottom of the rarely used diaper bag and other misfits. Regular size and the bigger toddler size. It was a motley crew (totally just wrote motley crue. rock on!) and perfect for the task at hand. We made quick work of the wrappers and I started chopping them into small (~1/4") pieces.

When I had about 2 cups of chopped crayons, we filled the (sprayed) muffin tin. Two cups was the perfect amount for a 12 count mini muffin pan. I tried to make sure every cavity had a nice assortment of colors. You could also sort them by color or color families. But we wanted rainbow.

Then we popped them in the oven at 275* for about 9 minutes. I am sure this varies by the size of your muffin tin/mold and the size of your crayon pieces. You want all the pieces to be melted.

After they were all melted, I pulled them out and let them sit on the counter for about 10 minutes. Then I put them in the freezer for another 20 minutes or so to make sure they were cool all the way through and they popped right out.

Now, I'll be honest. They are not the prettiest or most rainbow-y crayons out there. But my two helpers were more than pleased, so I consider it a success! If I were to do it again, I would make sure to use all Crayolas. The cheaper crayons seems to create a film of sorts. Or maybe some were washable? I was able to flake most of it off, so it wasn't a big deal.

And here is the finished product!

No, I did not design the card. But this lovely blogger did and has kindly offered them up for free. Three years ago. See, I told you I am behind the times! They would have been much cuter with heart shaped crayons, but c'est la vie.

So there you go. I was crafty and a) didn't hurt myself, b) was successful and c) am already thinking about our next batch. I am thinking glitter crayons. Or possibly neon. Maybe I'll go all crazy and do both!

Here is the "recipe":

Crayons
Cooking spray
Muffin tin/silicone molds/cookie cutters (place a cookie cutter on a baking sheet, fill and bake)

Take wrappers off crayons
Chop crayons into small pieces (2c. was perfect for our mini muffin tin)
Spray muffin tin/molds
Fill muffin tin with broken crayons
Bake @ 275* for 8-10minutes until crayons are melted
Let cool completely and remove
Eat a cookie to celebrate a successful crafting adventure
The End.