Making Crayons...

Erica, the babysitter we used while we were in Milwaukee, and girls camp and Steve's birthday weekend is absolutely fantastic. She became friends of our family when my sister lived with us because they were good friends. She's older, more mature and loves kids. It will come as no surprise that my kids would much prefer her over me because she's just more fun. Case in point: crayon making. We hadn't seen Erica for a few weeks and she called up to ask if she could come make crayons with the kids. Who would refuse that offer? Making crayons was always something I made a mental note of doing with the ridiculous amount of broken crayons around the house but it never actually made my to-do list.

She brought all the supplies over and worked her magic - she has a spell over my kids because I know had I attempted this same project, one kid would've cut their finger while the other burned their hand on the pan spilling hot wax on the other kid. Luckily no such casualties arose!

The kids chose some crayons and started peeling off the wrappers and Erica carefully cut them into small pieces. She bought a small muffin tin from Goodwill for $.25 and Hallie and Hunter carefully picked out colors to blend in each tin. We put the muffin tin on an old cookie sheet and put it in the oven at 225 degrees. The old cookie sheet is really just to protect your oven because once the wax melts it gets a little messy. It only took about 10 minutes and the wax was completely melted so we pulled it out to let it cool (in the fridge). Once they were completely cooled they popped right out of the tin. (not that she'll ever want to use that tin for food again, it's became a permanent art tool!)

The kids thought it was the coolest project ever. What was funny was the next morning I went to the fridge to grab the milk and I saw the small muffin tin full of crayons in the fridge. I removed the tin and placed it on the counter. Just a few hours later I was back in the kitchen with the fridge open and I saw the crayons back in the fridge. I asked both Hunter and Hallie why the crayons kept ending up in the fridge. Hunter was the first to pipe up, "Because I don't want them to melt." Naturally he thought if they didn't stay cold they would liquify again. Silly boy!

Thank heavens we have a fun babysitter to do the art projects that as a mom I never get around to doing!