Melted Crayon Afternoon

I am actually loving the fact that I don't do craft fairs anymore. Instead of spending an afternoon constructing elaborately-layered crayons mostly by myself, with the girls helping me or playing with each other, now a crayon craft afternoon looks like us all together on the floor, surrounded by the craft crayon bin, the entire silicone mold collection, and an ever-growing pile of crayon wrappers, the stereo playing Sydney's latest Disney Song and Story CD obsession (we get them from our public library or from Spotify, and Syd LOVES them). There's no pressure of perfection, it's much more child-led, and since I don't have a quota to fill, we can stop whenever we feel like it.

Well, unless it's this week, when the girls have got some Valentines to make, and a couple of birthday presents for an upcoming party to craft for--THEY have a quota! And while we're at it, I might as well try out that giant peace sign silicone mold that a friend gave me for Christmas.

Handy Tip: I grab crayons from our big bin, slice each one up the side with an X-acto knife, and put them in a separate pile for the girls to dig through and unwrap:

We've got little hearts, and big hearts, and little LEGOs, and big LEGOs, and little skulls (but not the big skull, on account of it's not a silicone mold, and therefore not oven-safe), and this humongous peace sign, so large that I can throw entire crayons unbroken into the mold:

Two hundred degrees!

You'll notice this change from my previous melted crayons tutorial: I only had to spill an entire mold's worth of molten crayons into the bottom of the oven to learn to put a baking sheet under the molds. You can't fool me more than three or four times!

The skulls and LEGOS came out perfect for delighting a certain little boy at his birthday party this weekend, and the peace sign?

I LOVE it! I need to figure out some way to make it mountable on my wall, and then I'm totally making another one for my pumpkinbear etsy shop. Another one, however, because this one is all mine:

But those melted crayon hearts? Well, they're not quite ready to be Valentines yet. After all, we haven't yet taken a single power tool to them! Stay tuned...