Heart Shaped Crayon Valentines

I am so excited about this project! I have been wanting to try the "recycled" crayon thing for a while and with Valentine's Day quickly approaching, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. So I've got a little how-to here on how you can make them too.

What you need:

• Crayons (I bought a box of 250 crayons HERE)
• Mini heart-shaped silicone mold (I purchased mine from a craft store, the one with 12 wells)
• Double-sided tape
• Cardstock (or something to adhere your finished crayons to)
• Baggies
• Twine (or anything else that you can use to close up the bag)

So first things first: gather your crayons. We don't have oodles of broken crayons lying around that I could "recycle" so I decided to go straight for the bulk crayons. I thought it would be 8 colors but it ended up being a lot more color variety than that. I was nervous about that at first but I think the end result looks great.

I was like a kid when I got home from work and this box was on my porch. I started peeling them as soon as we were done with dinner. It's not really something to spontaneously start on a Thursday evening so I didn't get too awfully far with it. I ended up having to put it aside until Saturday.

Grant actually asked to help me peel the crayons!

I love the concentration on that face :)

So...many...crayons!

At some point during our peeling endeavors, my husband suggested using a sharp blade to slice the paper. "Wouldn't that be easier?" he asked me. I'll admit that when peeling the paper it came off the crayons much easier than I expected but when Grant abandoned me in favor of crashing his toy cars...I decided to try Husband's idea. 

Pretty genius, right? I was peeling those crayons at record speed!

After you undress all your crayons, then you chop them. I used a paper plate so I didn't ruin a cutting board. I tried to keep the pieces relatively small to really fill up the mold. 

I also got a big blister from chopping 250 crayons (beware!).

So after your crayons are all chopped up, it's time to fill your mold. Make sure you put the mold on a baking sheet of some sort for stability! Otherwise you'll end up with non-toxic smelly crayon wax in the bottom of your oven...it's possible I'm speaking from experience.

I filled my mold pretty full. I wanted good sized crayons.

Then you bake them at 230 degrees for 15 minutes.

Fresh out of the oven! It's probably the smelliest thing that's ever come out of my oven.

Once the baking sheet had cooled down some, I popped the whole thing in the fridge to make it cool down faster. Once the crayons are completely cooled, press up on the bottom of each well and gently peel the crayon out of the mold. (FYI: I got 44 heart crayons out of the 250 that I chopped.)

So colorful and fun!

My favorites are the ones with the speckles from the tiny bits of chopped crayons

Your next step is adhering them to the backing of your choice. I made up this nifty background which you can download for your personal use below.

You can leave the corners square if you don't feel like trimming 

them with scissors. I think they look cute either way.

My crayons had a little "lip" around the edges after they hardened so I used the same blade that I sliced the paper with to trim the back of the crayon.

Then I used the double sided tape to stick the crayon to the card.

I had some cellophane treat bags leftover from various baking projects, so that was my baggie of choice but you can use whatever want. I also had some twine here so I used that to close up my baggie instead of the twist ties they came with. 

Is it wrong to admit that Grant is a big fan of candy? I promise he doesn't eat it all the time. But since he is and Valentine's Day makes me think candy, we added a sweet treat tied up in the twine to finish up.

And there is your adorable DIY Valentine!

They really do color too! I let Grant experiment with a couple extra.

You could do your To & From on the back of the little cards. 

For us, we're attaching these adorable personalized Valentines from Tiny Prints! Grant had so much fun looking through the Valentines but was even more excited when they came in the mail!

If you decide to make these and you'd like to use the background I made (for your own personal use), you can download it HERE. And if you decide to make the crayons, I'd love to hear about it!

Grant can't wait to give out Valentine's at school! He keeps asking how many more days. This project was a little time consuming but not difficult. I love that I was able to involve Grant for some of it, since was asking to help and it makes me so happy see him excited to give them to his friends.

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!