Valentine's Day Crayons

So I'm a little wierd about my kids eating tons of candy.  On halloween, I would so much rather give out toothbrushes and animal crackers than a load of candy--too bad it's so expensive.  Anyway, I was stalking Pinterest the other night and ran across this really cool idea for turning regular crayons into heart shaped crayons.  Plus, I knew Lilah would love to do it with me.

First, I should probably confess that I'm a bit of a crayon snob.  I HATE crayons that aren't crayola.  However, I forced myself into spending $1.96 on a box of 96 Crazy Art crayons instead of $3 for Crayola, in case it didn't work.  Once I got home, I threw in a couple of Lilah's crayola's that were laying on the floor because I didn't want to carry them to her room. HA!

I soaked all of the crayons in warm water for about 20 minutes to get all the paper off.  Here is where I recommend Crayola--The paper came off SO much easier than on the Crazy Art's.  Crazy Art must use some kind of super duper crayon glue--a royal pain in the tush!

Once all of the paper was off, I chopped up the crayons using a big knife and cutting board--I'd say each crayon piece was 1 inch or less.  Lilah filled each of the hearts in the silicon tray about halfway full of crayon pieces.  We put them in the oven at 275 degrees for 10 minutes.  We removed them from the oven and let them cool for about 20 minutes and Voila!  We had perfect crayon hearts to take to preschool to go with her Valentines.  (If they last that long)  The whole project cost $3 total--$.97 cents for the silicon heart tray at Walmart.