Melted Crayon Hearts

I don’t exactly hate Valentine’s Day but I do think it’s probably one of the dumbest holidays on the calendar.

Before I was married, Valentine’s Day, with those heart shaped balloons and cutesy stuffed animals all over the stores, only served as a daunting reminder that I was the only person in the whole world who was still single and on my way to die the lonely death of an old maid. Please tell me I wasn’t the only one at nineteen who was silly enough to think like this…

Valentine’s Day also involved cold late nights trudging back and forth from the flower shop to the refrigerated truck out back, carrying five gallon buckets of prickly red roses. To this day, the sight of red roses makes me want to run and hide.

Now that I’m married, I’ve apparently made Valentine’s Day all about creating unrealistic expectations for my husband. If he fails to meet whatever I’ve envisioned for him to do or be, I decide he doesn’t love me and give myself permission to be cold and aloof. And if he forgets Valentine’s Day altogether, well, it doesn’t seem to matter to me that he works hard at his job and washed the dinner dishes from last night. If he forgets Valentine’s Day, it must mean the beginning of the end.

So, I don’t like Valentine’s Day. The day has a way of setting me up for failure. I may have something to do with it, but for now I’m going to blame it on Valentine’s Day.

That said, I do like celebrating Valentine’s Day with my kids. Kids can make any holiday fun and enjoyable. On Valentine’s Day we have fun making crafts and exchanging all those cute kiddo Valentines with the silly jokes on them. Holidays with kids, no matter what holiday it is, can be fun!

For the last two years, the kids and I have started this tradition of making melted crayon heart window decorations for Valentine’s Day. I found this craft in a craft book we have by Marjorie Frank called I Can Make a Rainbow.

Be warned. This craft is messy. (Very messy.) But the kids love it. Probably for the very reason that it IS messy.

Supplies to Gather
some old crayons
handheld pencil sharpener
wax paper
an iron
towels or newspaper
scissors
scotch tape or string
an adult

Steps:

1. Peel the paper from of all your crayons.

My daughter is awesome at this task. It’s her favorite thing to do in all the world. I have no doubt that she could have a crayon peeling ministry. She’s that good.

2. Create crayon shavings by using a handheld pencil sharpener.

We started out by using our electric pencil sharpener. Not the way to go. We got a big fat red crayon jammed into the electric sharpener on the first go around and it took a screwdriver and an hour or so to get it out. Use a handheld pencil sharpener and save yourself the misery!

3. Scatter your crayon shavings over a sheet of waxed paper.

The fist time we did this, we had the crayon shavings too close together so they didn’t really have any room to melt and become transparent and pretty. We left them some room the second time around and it turned out much better!

4. Lay another sheet of wax paper on top of the crayon shavings and top with several layers of newspaper and /or towels.

You want to get out your old yucky towels for this craft. Or if you have newspaper, that’s an even better choice. When you begin ironing, the crayon will melt and stain your pretty towels. I may or may not know this by experience. You want to have plenty of towels and newspaper both under and over your wax paper layer. Lots. If you don’t have enough layers underneath your wax paper, it can stain your ironing board cover too. Like I said, this craft is messy.

5. After you have layers of newspaper both under and over your wax paper layer, press with a warm iron.

You’ll want to do this for your kids, unless you have very responsible older children. Having kids around the iron makes me nervous so I usually do the ironing and the kids watch on this step.

6. Let the wax sheets of crayon shavings cool.

7. Cut the wax sheets into any desired shape.

I used a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut our sheets into heart shapes. We just used a pencil to trace around the cookie cutter and cut it out.