I saw this idea for crayon valentine hearts last year on my friend Ellie's blog and have been waiting to try it ever since. Me and Matthew had a great time making these this afternoon. There is a great tutorial here, but I'll give you the rundown on how we did it anyway.
OK, first of all, just find some old crayons and chop them up. Here's proof that there is definitely more than one way to use a wusthoff. Mine was a gift from Ryan. I'm sure he'll be happy to know it is coming in handy.
I'm sure breaking them would also be sufficient, but we like things quick and, ehm, violent. P.S. You probably don't want the five-year-old's help if you are using a wusthoff.
When you're done destroying your crayons, put them in a bowl and let the kiddo stir.
Your bowl of crayons is probably going to be a blinding conglomeration of random colors, depending on how many neon crayons you threw in the mix, something like this...
And then you put them in a little heart shaped mold pan. Ours is silicone, which I definitely recommend, because it makes them nice and easy to pop out. (No idea how we would have gotten these out of a metal pan, actually). You can get them in the craft section at WalMart.
And then you bake at 250 degrees for about fifteen minutes. Give them plenty of time to cool. When they're done, and you've put them together and added a cheesy Valentine crayon slogan, they will look something like this...
(If I was OCD about it, I probably would have coordinated the crayon colors to go with our paper colors, but, oh well, whatever.)
I also love that he signed them all himself. Don't you love five-year-old handwriting?
(He normally doesn't like to be "Matt," but he didn't have enough room for "Matthew.")
Ah, so much better than store-bought Transformer valentines!
edited to add: Most questions of the questions I get on this project are addressed somewhere in the comments, so please read through those before you email me. I am getting a LOT of email, and I would love to respond to everyone individually, but I have a new baby and very slow internet, a combination which makes individual responses nearly impossible! To answer the question I most commonly get, we attached the crayons to the cardstock using glue dots, which you can buy at most craft stores (even WalMart usually has them). Good luck! Thanks for linking back to me when you make these - I love to see other people's finished projects and if you don't link back then I will never see them!
Too cute! Last summer I made "crayon cookies" with my goddaughter - we used my old metal mini-muffin pan. The crayons came out no problem - after an overnight in the freezer.
Posted by: Amy | February 12, 2009 at 07:13 AM
So cute, what a great idea.
Posted by: Heidi Jarvis | February 12, 2009 at 10:38 AM
What a darling idea! I never would have thought of that. So clever. And perfect Valentines!
Posted by: Kara | February 12, 2009 at 11:10 AM
LOVES IT!
Posted by: Amanda | February 12, 2009 at 02:12 PM
Those are awesome! Now I know what to do with the broken crayons that I have been just throwing away! I'll definitely be trying this next year.
Posted by: Sara | February 12, 2009 at 02:37 PM
I like how he's wearing a monster shirt best of all!
Posted by: Katherine of it All | February 13, 2009 at 12:10 AM
fabulous! this is a hilarious blog! were they born in a barn? my boys were born in 2 baths & a hallway! very inspiring...
Posted by: maya | February 13, 2009 at 03:34 AM
So cute and congrats on appearing on the Crafty Crow!
Posted by: Jacqui | February 13, 2009 at 03:43 AM
very cute! How did you attatch them to the card?
I do adore 5 year olds handwritting!
Posted by: TAb | February 13, 2009 at 06:57 AM
I THOUGHT ABOUT DOING THE SAME...YOURS TURNED OUT FABULOUS! GREAT IDEA TO INCORPORATE THEM ON A CARD! VERY CLEVER AND SO MUCH BETTER THAN HANDING OUT A PIECE OF CANDY! THANK YOU FOR SHARING!!
Posted by: alexsirmacleod@aol.com | February 13, 2009 at 09:36 AM
Those are great. I've seen the crayon cookies before, but not in such an awesome presentation.
Posted by: lisa | February 13, 2009 at 09:46 AM
What a great way to use up all those broken crayons!
Posted by: jennifer | February 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM
This is awesome! I am going to try this as soon as I get a hold of a mold
Posted by: Isela | February 13, 2009 at 11:22 AM
what an awesome idea! love it!
Posted by: tish chow | February 14, 2009 at 12:50 PM
you are super talented....I think I may have to do these for my kiddos next Valentine's because the store bought ones are sooo boring....and now that I know I am doing it I will stock up BIG time when the back-to-school sales start up....crayons for CHEAP! I love reading about all your craftiness!
Posted by: Jennifer | February 14, 2009 at 06:00 PM
PLEASE PLEASE tell me how you CLEANED your silicon mold!!!! I tried it in my new silicon lego mold and I can't get the wax off/out of it. Any tricks?????
Posted by: nicolle boswell | February 16, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Once you use the mold for crayons you can not use it for food. I made these in bigger molds. My hearts were aout 3 inches wide and 3/4 inch tall. I wanted all red and had to add pink, and purple to have enough crayons. You need to mound them in the mold and they will settle. The smaller the pieces the better. Anyway, my 14 crayons cost me 6 boxes of 96 crayons. I did find them on sale for $5 each. I actually used the blue and green crayons for my sons birthday favors. I found a rocket shaped soap mold and made blue and green crayons. I guess It would have been cheaper if I didn't keep the colors in the same family, but I didn't want the colors to mix and become muddy. One key to keeping them from doing that is not to over cook them. And if you use the soap molds they can only heat to 225. So they take a long time to melt. If you heat them higher as I did your mold will warp. I just cut them apart and put sand in a pan and seated them in level. I kept the temp down and they came out great.
Posted by: Tammy | March 17, 2009 at 05:42 AM
I just saw this idea on the crafty crow. I can't wait to try these this year!
Posted by: Cathy aka The Attached Mama | January 03, 2010 at 01:54 PM
Hi. I just wanted to say that I absolutely love your blog. I love it so much that I mentioned this entry in my recent blog post.Thanks so much for your great ideas and this valentines tutorial. How clever! :) I hope you will take a look at my blog when you get a chance.
Posted by: Jenn | January 20, 2010 at 03:01 AM
This is such a great idea! This was the one my daughter picked for her Valentines this year. Thanks!
Posted by: Erin | January 27, 2010 at 05:24 PM
Hi! Just wanted to let you know I’ve got a new FEATURED BUTTON. I’d love it if you’d stop by & grab one: http://delicious-ambiguity-nennyk.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-buttons-party.html. I've also started TOT Tuesdays & would love it if you would link up some of your great toddler projects. Cheers, Jenn
Posted by: Jenn | March 15, 2010 at 05:56 PM
Awesome! I'm going to "convince" my son that these are the best idea every :) What did you use for the base? Looks like chipboard or something where your son signed ...
Posted by: Tracy | February 03, 2011 at 11:40 AM
What did you use to attach the crayons to the paper and how many crayons are required for a pan of 12? Such a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Posted by: Chayna | February 09, 2011 at 09:04 AM
Just finished making some with snowflake shaped cookie mold. The mold was non-stick metal. They came out beautifully because they shrunk when cooled. They look so awesome! Thanks for the idea.
Posted by: Joey | November 26, 2011 at 08:02 PM
How did you attach the crayons to the paper? I;ve seen this question a couple of times but can't seem to see the answer Thanks!!
Posted by: C | January 11, 2012 at 05:35 PM
I have been going crazy trying to find these molds with little hearts (I can only find the ones with big hearts)...I have tried Michaels and JoAnn...any suggestions?
Posted by: Laura Pinto-Nguyen | January 25, 2012 at 05:19 AM
I guess those 250º is in Fahrenheit degrees. Just in case, I tried with the equivalent in Celsius (120º) and it worked just fine. Thanks. :)
Posted by: Calitoe.:. (Cristina MJ) | February 01, 2012 at 02:43 AM
Hi all! To answer some questions...
We attached the crayons with glue dots. You can buy them at most craft stores.
The pan came from the cake-decorating section of WalMart. Once you've used it for crayons, I wouldn't use it for food. The extra wax should just chip off after the crayons cool, and then you can use it to make more crayons!
And, yes, 250 is Farenheit.
Have fun!
Posted by: Kim (aka Chef Messy) | February 01, 2012 at 04:49 PM
We found and used heart shaped silicone ice trays (couldn't find muffin pans). And we went ahead and used all the colors in the box (didn't separate by color family) and they didn't get muddy at all.
The crayons turned out really cute. My daughter can't wait to give them to her classmates next week!
Posted by: Beth | February 07, 2012 at 05:58 PM
Laura,
Ikea has heart shaped ice trays and I found bigger size mold at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago...
Posted by: sumini | February 08, 2012 at 12:15 PM
How did you attach them to the paper
Posted by: Amy Luehman | February 10, 2012 at 07:57 AM
I'm also having trouble figuring out how to attach these to the paper. How did you do it?
Posted by: Jennifer | February 10, 2012 at 12:04 PM
I think it's a great idea! I would do the same for my classmates...but they would rebel if I didn't bring chocolate! LOL
(I'm the class president and the class baker, even tho we are in pharmacy).
I see a lot of people asking about how the crayons are attached. I can't say what the blogger did, but I bet you could use a little hot glue to hold them.
Posted by: Elizabeth | February 10, 2012 at 04:14 PM
Making heart shaped crayons for Andy's class. Better than candy! Steve thinks we should have just bought erasers. :)
Posted by: Michelle Bell | February 12, 2012 at 01:27 PM
I saw this in Pinterest :) My daughter and I made these for her to give to her class for Valentine's Day and they were so great! Thanks so much for a not-candy Valentine idea :)
We use Glue Dots to attach the hearts to the paper (*love* Glue Dots!)
Thanks again!
Posted by: Tiffiny Felix | February 19, 2012 at 08:41 AM
May be a silly question but.. did you peel all of these crayons or is there a place to purchase crayons before they are wrapped.. trying to make something like this for the first day of school for my first graders and peeling crayons is a frustrating job :)
Posted by: Lauren | July 10, 2012 at 05:42 PM
Awesome idea formy little one at church! Thanks for the great idea!
Posted by: Pam | July 24, 2012 at 07:08 PM
rThis craft was so fun!!! It didn't take very much time and my three year old loved it! I used an ice cube tray from the 99¢ store shaped like witches hats, for halloween. My girls are having so much fun coloring with thier crazy crayons and we started the craft about and hour ago. I put them in the freezer to expidite the wait time (my daughter was checking on them every few minutes.....) next time i will try some cooking spray, as they were a bit challanging to pop out of the ice tray.....<3 this!!!!
Posted by: Kristanfrazier | October 10, 2012 at 09:26 AM
Love this idea! Do you think it would work to add a pin on the back and give as a lovely gift to a Mom?
Posted by: Sharon | November 19, 2012 at 03:33 PM
I ordered the silicone mold directly from Wilton. The directions say to spray the mold with vegetable spray. Will this effect the crayons?
Posted by: Penny | January 18, 2013 at 10:06 AM
Thank You for the idea... Since My daughter needs to give her classmates a "Valentines". My only concern is if they end up trying to eat it lol. But Thank You!!! Great Idea!
Posted by: Nelly | January 27, 2013 at 07:31 PM
So adorable...how do you get the paper off the crayons? I'm spending all my time with the darn paper removal...any fast ideas? Help!
Posted by: Sandra | February 05, 2013 at 05:49 PM
I just made some last night. Did not need to use any vegetable spray, they popped out of the silicone very easily. Don't use too many dark colors or they will make an ugly brown/black color with only hints of the lighter ones. I chopped my crayons really small..and should have used bigger pieces like in the picture!
Overall great craft...easy and fun!
PS..my mold was small with 15 mini hearts
Posted by: Linda | February 07, 2013 at 08:53 AM
I was all excited about doing this after seeing it but the crayons got all watery and all the colors ran together and looked black. *sad face*. What did I do wrong? PS-I got my heart mold at Hobby Lobby.
Posted by: Liz | February 09, 2013 at 06:26 PM
Just posted above...quick tip...I soaked all the crayons in water to remove the paper and dried them off really well before cutting. :)
Posted by: Liz | February 09, 2013 at 06:28 PM
To remove the paper easily, I used a utility knife to score it and it quickly peeled off.
Posted by: Susan | February 10, 2013 at 10:49 AM
The end result is adorable, but it is a time consuming process. We used silicone heart shaped mold from Walmart with a scalloped edge & they are very cute, but many cracked trying to remove from the silicone. We tried chilling in freezer and 5 of 6 cracked while being removed. The 2nd time we let them cool at room temperature and only 1 cracked. We will definitely do this project again. Thanks for the great idea. It's hard to find a crafty Valentine for a 7 year old boy's classmates.
Posted by: Paula | February 13, 2013 at 06:31 AM
OK we made these yesterday. They are totally cute- but definitely time-consuming (especially for 3rd grade and 2nd grade classes for my two kids, totalling 69 kids!!) Here are some tips from my experience: 1) Ditto Susan's post above (2/10, 10:49am). ABSOLUTELY use an exacto or utilty knife - it will save you HOURS to get the paper off! What I did was carefully cut a line from the top of the paper to the bottom of the paper (making sure to press in enough to get through all the paper - just be careful not to roll the crayon and cut your finger). Then I was able to just pop the paper off 95% of the crayons. For the ones where the paper was sticking more to the crayon, you can then use the utility knife to peel up the end and that usually helps get the rest of it off(and save your nails...I didn't think about using a knife until halfway through so my left thumbnail is trashed!) 2) don't even bother cutting the crayons (unless you have the jumbo size, in which case you will need to). Rather, break off pieces by hand and dump them right into the bowl. I would agree with another previous poster - you don't want the pieces too small (breaking them pretty much assures this won't happen!). I used individual silicon heart cups (they came in a pack of twelve and had scalloped edges like Paula's above -they come out way cute!). The sad thing is, I purchased the silicon heart pan as shown in this blog two months ago, expressly for this project which I found on Pinterest. Can someone come over and find where I hid it? Couldn't find it and had to go out and buy the individual cups at michaels (set of 12 for $9.99) b/c they didn't have the 12 heart pan. As far as baking - i did on 260 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Then you really need to let them cool - probably a half hour to an hour before you try to pop them out. Paula, one thought I had about why yours cracked is maybe you actually didn't use enough crayons in each mold?! Mine are not close to being able to crack. When complete, they are 1/3 of an inch thick. When filling my mold with crayons, i think i filled them not quite to halfway. For the paper to stick them to, I bought a package of flower shaped paper and also of star shaped paper (48 pieces in each) so we didn't have the added step of cutting anything out. Good luck!! These are so cute, and well worth the effort in my opinion!! Thank you!!!
Posted by: Julie | February 13, 2013 at 09:51 AM
I used an old potato peeler in lieu of an exacto knife. It worked beautifully!
Posted by: OCroak | February 13, 2013 at 03:14 PM