Preschool Valentines

My little boy celebrated Valentine's Day at preschool on Wednesday. He was so excited to bring in valentines for his classmates and teachers. We opted to make crayon hearts--the same preschool valentine that Princess handed out a few years ago.

I started off by peeling the paper off all the old broken Crayola crayons I've been stockpiling for the past couple of years. (Yes, I plan ahead!) I learned, after making these a few years ago, that good quality crayons melt down much nicer than cheapie dollar store crayons! After the crayons were peeled, I put the children to work rubbing the crayon sides on paper to clean off all the speckled bits of crayon. Then I chopped up the crayons...
...and put them into silicone ice cube trays. I bought these trays last year for $2.50 for a two pack at Target (in the dollar spot at the front of the store) but you can also make them using the Reynolds foil hearts that are available at Dollar Tree. That's what I used the last time I made crayon hearts.
Group similar colors together to get extra pretty hearts...and skip the grays and browns.
I put my silicone trays on a cookie sheet to give them stability. The last thing I want is crayon wax spilled anywhere! I baked them at 275 degrees for about ten minutes--basically until everything looked melted.
The blue ones were gorgeous when they were liquidy--they were so vibrant and pretty!
Leave them in the trays until they're solid, then just pop them out. I ended up with a small amount of blah white wax that rose to the tops of some of the crayons, so I shaved that off with a knife after I popped the crayons out of the mold.
Then I used foam tape (from the scrapbook section at Michael's) to attach the crayons to these cute cards--my little boy wrote his name on the backs of all the cards all by himself. Proud mama moment! I can't take credit for the cards--I found a PDF over at The Long Thread where Ellen did all the work! All I did was print the pictures onto cardstock, cut them out, and use my corner rounder punch on them. These valentines turned out super cute and, had I not needed a $56 new ink cartridge for my printer (ouch!!) would have been free to make using supplies we already had at home.

As an aside, as the mama of a nut allergic child, I like trying to lead by example and show other parents that holiday treats don't always need to be candy. I'm biting my tongue and trying to lead by example rather than by lecture.