Valentine's Day Crafts

Caleb and I did a couple of little craft projects for Valentine's Day this year.  The first one was super simple but he loved it!  I found these foam heart stickers in the $1 spot at Target.  All I did was write a verse of scripture across the top of a piece of white cardstock and then let him put the heart stickers on it and color on it.  This occupied him for nearly 45 minutes!  At first, I peeled the backs off the stickers for him but then he decided he wanted to do it himself so I let him have at it.  It took a little effort to peel the backs off so that helped to stretch this activity out.  I was kinda surprised that it held his attention for as long as it did!

I also read the scripture to him several times - it's the first portion of Proverbs 3:5...."Trust in the LORD with all your heart...."  I want to start scripture memory with him since he remembers so many things and is talking up a storm now.  He can repeat it back, but so far no luck on actually memorizing anything.  That is really going to be on me to continue to work with him on verses, but I have not really stuck to it yet.

Our other project was to make our own heart-shaped crayons to give to his friends at school!  I got this idea from Pinterest, although I never actually pinned it so I don't have the link.  If you search for "heart crayons" or something like that, you will find many links.  This was really easy, although I did hit a few snags along the way.  Here's what we did...

First you soak your crayons in warm water.  This helps to remove the wrappers.  Trust me, you do not want to skip this step.  I started out by trying to just peel them myself w/o soaking and that was taking for-ev-er!!  Then I Googled this project and found the tip to soak them first...worked like a charm.  As you can see, some of them just slipped off on their own in the water (look at the silver one in the middle).

Then after the wrappers are off, make sure your crayons are dry and then break them up.  One tutorial I saw said to chop them with a knife.  I tried that at first but ended up just breaking them by hand.  It went faster and produced less waste.  If you chop them, you end up with little bits of crayon flying everywhere.....so just break them with your hands.  I made at least 4 small pieces from each crayon.  Oh, and I did the soaking, peeling and breaking by myself without involving Caleb.  I did not want him getting any ideas about breaking his own Crayons so I didn't let him see this part of the process!  If he were a little older and could understand that we don't normally break our Crayons, then I would have let him help....but not now!

Next, just put them into a heart-shaped mold (or any other shape).  I found this heart-shaped silicone baking pan in the Target $1 spot and it worked perfectly!  I love the Target $1 spot - I always find great little things to do art projects with Caleb and we even get books from there.

Caleb enjoyed helping to fill up the pan.  On our first batch, I think we filled them too much and these crayons were pretty thick.  I'd say fill at least half-way but not much more.

Then, just pop them in the oven and "bake" at 250 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  I saw other tutorials that baked at a different temperature so you cold go higher if you want....but probably not over 300 degrees.  I checked them every 5 minutes or so.  You don't want to go for too long because instead of having the colors nicely swirled together, they will end up just all running together and you won't get your individual colors....if that makes sense.  I found this out the hard way with another batch! 

After you take them out you can either just let them cool on the counter or pop them in the fridge to speed up the process (what we did).  Then just pop them out and you're done!

Here's what I ended up doing for Caleb's class Valentine's.  I put them in a snack-sized ziplock bag and then printed a little card that said "Hope Your Valentine's Day is Colorful!"....writing out the word "colorful" with Crayons.  I thought they turned out cute!  Sorry this picture isn't the greatest - couldn't avoid the glare from the baggie.

You could also attach the heart crayon directly to a card of some sort, which is what I saw on several tutorials.  I guess you would have to use some sort of double-sided tape.  I didn't do this because the kids were going to pass out their own Valentine's and I could just see Caleb ripping all the crayons off the cards - ha!  So, I figured I'd better put them in a baggie so he couldn't get to them!

A couple tips I have after doing this project....

Use the Crayola brand!!  I made my first batch too thick so I ran out of Crayola and didn't want to go get more.  I used some Rose Art ones and also tried some HEB brand ones we had in the house....they did not work as well.  The wrappers were a pain to get off!!  They did not just slip off like the Crayola ones, even after soaking them.  They also looked different after melting them, and I prefered the way the Crayola ones turned out.

My other tip is what I already mentioned about the baking time....don't go for too long or you'll get one big block of melted crayon with no color swirls!

Don't overfill.....you do not need to fill them up completly.  I started out with a box of 64 crayons and that made 6 thicker ones and 4 thinner ones.  Had I not overfilld the first batch, I probably could have gotten 12 out it (which is what I was trying to make).

And as I said, I cannot take credit for this idea....although I did come up with my own card saying, and I think they turned out pretty cute!