Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Easy-Peasy Do-It-Yourself-Valentines!

I am sick of generic Valentine's Day cards that ALL the kids pass out. How many Frozen, Tinkerbell, Superheroes & Cars can one person take?!?!  
I admit, they spruced things up a little bit a few years ago by adding pencils, stickers & tattoo's to the mix. But now all that does is leave me with a drawer full of pencils, stickers & tattoo's that never get used! 

This year, I decided to do something different. Of course, I scoured Pintrest for ideas because that's what all of us non ingenious, borderline creative moms do, right? Thank goodness for Pintrest. 

So, after a few hours of looking at all the amazing, perfect, guaranteed, easy-to-do-yourself Valentines, the kids settled on what they wanted to do. 

My nine year old decided she wanted to make heart crayon molds. Perfect!!! I already had a ton of broken, not-used-anymore crayons just sitting in a drawer. we peeled the papers off all the crayons:

Peel off ALL the paper from the crayons.
Then cut the crayons up.
Fill try with cut up crayons.
Make sure ALL the paper has been removed. 


Next you will need a silicone tray. Lucky for me I had 2 heart shaped silicone ice cube trays that I had bought from Target in the Dollar Bin section! Fill the silicone tray with the cut up crayons



 Next we placed them in the oven, set at 200* for 10 minutes. Just to be safe, I placed the trays on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil, but this was just an extra precaution and it really didn't need it. It is helpful when having to take the trays out of the oven, because the silicone does get warm. So it's just easier to remove the cookie sheet. It's fun watching all the colors melt & blend together ...
Place in oven at 200* for 10 minutes
Crayons melting & blending together. 

Once you take the trays out of the oven, place them in the freezer. Be VERY careful when moving them as you don't want melted wax pilling on yourself or anything else. Yes, I found out the hard way and spent a good half hour using a paint scrapper to get melted wax off the
 kitchen floor.
Place in freezer for 10-15 minutes.
Or when the crayon has hardened.

After placing the trays in the freezer for a short period of time (about 10-15 minutes. You want them hard, but not too hard), remove the trays and gently push from the bottom to pop the mold out. I did over 30 and only broke one. For me, that is an accomplishment! 
Crayon Heart Molds

After the hearts were out, we cut out papers and used glue dots to affix them to the paper. You can use any design paper you like. 
Once we got all the hearts on the papers, my daughter wrote her Valentine message:
You Color my World!
Happy ♥ Day! 



The Finished product!! 


Phew!! One down ... one to go.

You're one in a "Minion"! 
My 10 year old decided on a Minion project. This one cost a bit more money than the "use what I already have in my house" project, but it's cute and I figured since we didn't spend anything on the one project, we could splurge a little. Luckily, our local supermarket was having a sale on Twinkie's so I got a box (10 twinkies) for $1.99. For this project you will also need colored construction paper and googly-eyes (I used the 15mm size), and a black fine tip marker. 


Cut the black construction paper into .5-1mm strips.
Then cut 2"x5" strips of the blue construction paper.

Using different colored construction paper, cut out hearts. I used about 3½"-4" size hearts. Have your kids write their message on the hearts:

You're one in a "Minion"! 

                Wrap the black construction paper around one end of the Twinkie, towards the top. Use tape or glue dots to hold the ends together. Take a googly-eye and use a glue dot to stick the eye to the center of the black strip.

Take the 2"x5" blue paper and wrap it around the bottom of the twinkie and again, use either tape or glue dots to connect the ends.
 Decorate the blue construction paper to look like pants/overalls. 
Then attach the heart to the Twinkie-Minion and you are all set! 



These were fun projects that I was able to do with my kids. And now they have cool Valentine's to take to their classmates at school. I figured this was the last year for my son and only one more year with my daughter doing Valentine's cards (Do they do Valentine's cards in middle school?!?!?) so why not go out with a bang! And if *I* can do it, anyone can do it!!