I was strolling through Dollar Tree with the girls last week and I saw this cute little heart mold in their Valentine’s section! I’ve always wanted to try making heart crayons, especially since we have a million broken crayons, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.
The only problem was that this is an ice cube tray and all of the directions I’ve seen for heart crayons involve the oven. Since I didn’t exactly want to melt my mold, I opted for the microwave instead. I was pretty much winging it, but the finished product was adorable! Goose and Belle were literally squealing with excitement!
Materials
- heart mold
- crayons
- sharp knife
- microwave
Instructions
- Peel the paper off of the crayons.
- Break or cut the crayons into roughly half-inch pieces. You should be able to break skinny crayons with your hands, but bigger crayons will probably need a knife.
- Fill the heart mold with the crayon pieces.
- Microwave in 5-minute increments until the wax has mostly melted. It took less than 20 minutes total for us, but just keep an eye on your crayons. It may take more or less time depending on how old your crayons are, the size of the pieces, and how powerful your microwave is. This is a great chance for your kids to make observations and discuss how the crayons are changing as time passes.
- Let the wax cool and harden for 30 minutes. You can put the mold in the freezer if you want to speed things along.
- Carefully pop the hearts out and color!
I actually prefer the idea of the microwave because it was much safer for the kids to help me. We ended up doing two batches and all of the hearts came out so cute!
I also love that you can mix up the crayon pieces and make any color combinations you want. One of my kids wanted solid color hearts while the other wanted them all blended.
And the best part is that these crayons actually color just as vibrantly as they did before being melted. Super easy and super fun! You definitely need to make some heart crayons with your little ones!
If your kiddos love making things, check out the softest homemade playdough and cotton ball painting!
Talk to you soon!
[…] made in the oven, but we’ve found the microwave to be safer for my little helpers. We made heart crayons for Valentine’s Day last year and learned that the microwave is just as effective at melting […]