Heart Crayons - Love Me Do Blog Hop

Welcome to the “Love Me Do” Valentine’s Blog Hop!  This week, January 16^th-20^th, we have a group of 5 talented designers sharing projects with you on their blogs to get you prepared for the upcoming season of love!  Whether you use these designs to create something for your loved ones or spring-board off the inspirations given, we would love to see your work as well, so leave a comment on the blogs as you go through.

On January 24^th, we will be giving away a collection of goodies from the group to one lucky participant.  The giveaway will be hosted through filling out a Google Docs form, on Live.Teach.Create on January 20^th, asking various questions about the posts throughout the week.  All those who enter with the correct answers will have a chance to win!

And now on to my project for today!

These crayons are so simple to make, they're just a little time consuming especially if your crayons are old and have stubborn wrappers.

Depending on how many crayons you'll be peeling, now would also be a good time to pre-heat your oven to 250 degrees and put some foil over a cookie sheet or pizza pan. I like to bake mine on a tray of some sort to keep it even and prevent warping of the crayons. Foil will help keep any stray crayon wax off your pans.

You'll need to unwrap all the crayons you plan to use for this project. Paper is not good, so make sure you get all of it off. This is a great step for kids to help with. For the most part it's easy.

I suggest using a variety of colors, but I personally try to avoid using black and brown in these more swirled crayons. If you were doing melt and pour layered crayons or crayons that were one color only that would probably be different.

Break the unpeeled crayons into small pieces. I used a knife to cut mine but was VERY careful to cut straight down and use pressure from a flat hand - no fingers curved or curled over the sides - to press down. Crayons are round and they will roll. Please keep your fingers safe, and especially do not let children help.

See? Small pieces. Exactly how small depends on how big you want the splotches of color to be in your finished crayon, what size mold you're working with and how full you'll be filling it. My mold looks like this:

It's a Wilton silicone baking mold which makes it super easy to pop the finished crayons out. Any size, shape and brand of silicone baking mold should work. Just make sure it's a baking mold meant for the oven and not something like an ice cube mold (which sometimes looks the same and can sometimes be found in the same area as the baking supplies).

Fill the cavities as full as you would like. I filled mine about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way up with small bits of assorted colors. This produced a thinner crayon than if I had filled it closer to 1/2 or 2/3 of the way full. As I said, how full you fill them with crayon bits will determine how thick your finished crayon is since once it beings melting things will even out.

Once they're filled to the thickness you want, place the mold on that pan you lined with foil and put it in the oven for 10 minutes. Check on your crayons by just opening the door to view them. Try not to move the pan in case they aren't quite done.

The more your move the tray while the wax is melted, the more swirling and mixing of colors you will get. This could be a good thing if it's just done a little bit, which will happen when you take them out of the oven and why I suggest not moving the pan until they're done. It could also be a bad thing and make an ugly, murky colored crayon if it's done too much.

Crayons are done when all the crayon bits are melted. If they aren't done after 10 minutes, keep them in another 5 minutes. Check on them every 5 minutes until they are all melted and then remove them from the oven. You can leave them on the pan on top of the stove to cool or you can put them in the freezer to speed things up. If you put them in the freezer, please make sure they are on a flat, level surface. Otherwise you'll end up with odd thicknesses of crayons.

Thanks for joining me today for Day 3 of the “Love Me Do” Valentine’s Blog Hop!  Next person in the hop is Claudia.  Check back again with me tomorrow as well for another new idea.