Recycled or Rainbow Crayons for Valentine's Day

Recently I found this idea in the book "Smart Kids Activity", pg. 16, while browsing at the library for ideas for a school Valentine's party (that I now don't have to be in charge of--whew, so happy about that!)  After seeing the book I remembered having seen this years ago in a Family Fun magazine--and sure enough when I went looking online I found it right off--Crayon Hearts.

I am sure that many of you have a similar container of crayons that resembles this:

Broken bits, papers removed, a big 'ole mess of leftover crayons dumped together into a bucket at the end of the school year with the hopes that they will get used again, ... sometime.

Basically here is what you do to make the "new" crayons:

1. Find all the little crayon pieces without papers in your "stash" and use those first.  If you need more, remove wrappers and break into pieces that will fit into your muffin tin. **Family Fun used heart tins, but we didn't have those.

2. Heat oven to 170ºF. 
3. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the wax has melted.
4. Remove and allow to cool. 
5. If they don't come out easily, place them in your freezer for up to an hour--they should pop right out.

Here is what they look like hardened in your muffin tin.

But here is what the other side looks like once you pop them out.  Totally COOL!

We'll add some sort of note with each that says something like:

You color my world

Valentine, you make my heart melt

Have a happy Valentine's Day, for "crayon" out loud!

Friends are the Rainbows of Life



***We ended up doing 2 batches--the first was a practice run for the 2nd grader's Valentines, just in case they didn't work out like we hoped.  They did, and B. loves them.  And so did the rest of the kids--they wanted some for themselves to make and use.