Crayon Valentines

This project I have been doing for a few years and it's a huge hit. We take all of our old, naked, broken and munched up crayons and melt them into gifts! We have molds for Halloween, Christmas and Valentines Day. 

You can see a giant candy corn from Halloween in the bag!

  We break the crayons apart-the kids love this part!

 Stick them in the oven...

 and watch them melt!  I highly recommend using a craft oven and not your main oven, the last thing you want is for your fish dinner to have a hint of crayon.

 Ah bliss!

More bliss!

Then I go to the dollar store and get those cute little bags and place two crayon hearts in each bag and attach a little stapled label.  I like to staple the bag and alert the teacher because these crayons do look good enough to eat and we don't want that!

Our labels say...

Valentine you are so sweet

But these are crayons so

Do Not Eat!

Happy Valentine's Day from:

I am too new to blogging to figure out how to do a free downloadable!  Sorry.  If anyone is out there reading and wants to tell me how to do that, that would be great!

Melting crayon hints:

1. Only use metal or silicone molds.  My valentine one is from the Container Store from a few years ago do NOT use an ice cube mold from the Dollar Store-it will melt.
2. You will need to melt these crayons at 200 degrees for 20 mins.
3. Let them cool all the way to solid. I just keep mine in the oven, but when I am pressed for time, I pop them in the freezer.
4. The metal pans do not need any kind of mold release because it is a wax based product.  Just turn the pan upside down and gently tap or use your fingernail and gently lift the crayon out of the tin.  I use the Wiltons candy tins for the Christmas and Halloween ones.
5. Washable crayons do not work as well, they must have too much wax and not enough color.  My favorite is Rose Art, it has good color and seems to work the best when re-melted.  Target has them on sale for .25 during back-to-school.