Tutorial: Heart Shaped Crayons, and School Valentine's Day Treats

This year, I decided to make some heart-shaped crayons for William's class, for Valentine's Day.

I started with a couple big boxes of crayons. We didn't have any "old crayons" to use, because the boys aren't as interested in coloring as their sisters were. We got the 64ct boxes at the 99 Cents Only Store (for .99 of course)

All of the pretty peeled crayons.

William loved helping with the peeling. I loosened the wrapper, he pulled the wrapper off, put the wrapper in the trash and the crayon in the bowl. He was really focused on this job.

After they were all peeled, we sorted them by color; primary and secondary colors. I left the crayons whole for this part. I saw on some other tutorials that people broke theirs as they peeled them but I thought bigger pieces would be much faster to sort.

Here are my silicone heart-shaped muffin pans. These are larger muffin sized, and they're silicone, so they can go in the oven at higher temperatures. Do not use ice cube trays for this.

I broke the crayons as I put them in the muffin pans.

In a preheated 350F oven (I tried lower temps with poor results), add the trays. Melt for about 20 minutes.
It's not necessary for all of the crayons to be totally melted. After I took mine out of the oven, I gave them a quick stir each, then let them cool.

While they were cooling, the boys decided to take a turn at stirring them.

William thought perhaps that he might be misbehaving. He's always a bit cranky in situations such as these.

Look at this mess. After I cleaned up, I had to put that tray back in the oven for a few more minutes. *SIGH*

After they cooled, I popped them out. So pretty! The swirls are from the last-minute stir I gave them.

If you want to give these in a set as a gift, you can stack them up and tie them with a pretty ribbon!

I wanted to give one to each of William's classmates, so I'm glueing them to these doilies.

I thought this might be a good glue to use. I wasn't sure if Elmer's glue would work for this.

I put three dots on the "ugly" side of the crayon, then put the doily on, and let them dry.

I love these: so pretty! From the Dollar Tree.

After gluing the heart to the doily, I put it in a fancy ziplock bag. Depending on the kind of parents your kids classmates have, you MAY want to label this as a crayon.

I also want to include some homemade gummy hearts. I tell how to make these here.

For the gummy hearts, I used small snack ziplocks, and some felt heart stickers (also from the Dollar Tree)

I just chose two to add.

Put however many gummies you want to share inside the bag. Again, you *may* want to label these.

William picked out some cute pets Valentine's at the 99 Cents Only Store.

These work great because they have a huge place to write the names.

To give the treats, I put both little bags into a pastry bag, from Dollar Tree (yes, again!)

I used a hole punch on the valentine to attach it with balloon ribbon to the wire closure on the bag. Viola!
Depending on what's customary at your child's school, you could add more candy or favors, and you can make matching ones for the teachers, but with stuff GROWN UPS like.

Happy Valentine's Day!