You Color My World!!!

Being a former teacher I have crayons coming out my ears.  All the ones that got lost and no one claimed became mine.  Jump forward and I could also make the statement being a mother to 4 I have crayons coming out my ears!  So, what to do with all the bits and pieces of crayons that have accumulated over the years.  Then I came across a recycle idea.  Make new crayons.  With Valentine's on the horizon I thought it would be a lot of fun for the kids to make these to put with their valentines for the kids in their classes. 

The first step is to find a mold.  I found a heart shaped one since it is for Valentine's Day.  If your mold can go in the oven even better - if not there is another way as long as it can stand up to hot liquids.

Start by removing the wrappers from the crayons and breaking them into smallish pieces.  I found the easiest way to remove the wrappers is for an adult to score it with an exacto knife and then let the kids remove the wrapper.  Some of my crayons were so old that the wrapper was stuck to the wax.  The only advice I have - the involved adult can use the exacto knife to carefully scrape it off, the children can use fingernails to do the same, or just throw it out or back into your stash of crayons - there is no easy answer.

Way 1: put the pieces by color into cupcake tin liners and then melt them in the oven.  Once melted poor the liquified crayons into molds and allow to harden.  Be careful - the wax is hot and know that I am too lazy to do it this way.  So I have not tried the whole pooring thing.  I did melt some in the liners and then let them harden to make liner shaped crayons for the little ones. 

Way 2:  Find a mold that is big enough and can go in the oven.  Put your crayon pieces directly into the mold and melt in oven.  Once melted, remove from oven and allow to cool.  Remove from molds.  I used a silicone mold which made removal easy.  I have read that they kind of pop away from the sides of other molds as they cool, but since I have not tried other molds I can't vouch for that.

One more look at the finished product!  You can either make single colored crayons by using pieces of a similar color or you can make multicolored by mixing pieces.  The choice is yours. 
I am hoping that I can clean the excess wax out of the molds to use them for cooking later. I am thinking I can fill them with water and put them in the oven for the remnants to melt and then poor the water out and immediately clean with soap and water. I will let you know in a future post if I am able to get them clean - but that may be a week or two away since my kids are still having fun making crayons. 

Well hopefully that is clear - since it is my first somewhat planned tutorial!!!  Have fun melting crayons!

My first post and an old project

Wow, I finally did it.  I wanted to start a blog that focused on my projects and here we are.   Let's hope that I am better at keeping up with this blog than I am with my personal family blog.  I am hoping this blog will help me both share and remember things I am doing.  I am also hoping it will encourage me to finish some of the many partly done craft projects that I have. 

Since at the moment I am in the midst of a major rework of my basement area and my craft area happens to be buried within that section of my home - I thought I would start my blog by sharing some old projects that I have done.  So here we go!!!!

  A while back I came up with a semi brilliant idea that used things I already had to solve a problem I had been contemplating.  I love those cubical storage shelves that you get at Target and the fabric baskets that go in them.  I currently have them in my kids rooms and my mud room and I am sure I could find a few more.  The only problem is that there is no place on the baskets to put a label so that you know which container has what in it.  I am always pulling down several to look inside to see which one has what I am looking for.  I wanted to add a label holder, but did not have matching fabric and did not want to buy a basket - just to destroy it for the fabric as they are kind of pricey. 

Then I had an aha moment!  There is a cardboard insert on the bottom of each basket that is covered in the same fabric that the basket is made of.  You can remove this fabric to use for your labels and then recover the cardboard in anything you have laying around or can find cheap at the fabric store. You can actually get quite a few out of 1 bottom liner - so you don't have to take apart every basket that you own.   Here are some pictures of what I am talking about.  This bottom has been recovered in a cheap neutral fabric that I had laying around collecting dust.

For the actual label I used a pattern that I found at this site: http://www.jcarolinecreative.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=JC&Screen=STORAGE_BASKETS

By the way - the fabric baskets that the label pattern goes with are super cute and if I ever get time I may try to make some.  One day.....  Back on track.  I then used some clear plastic I had left over from another project and sewed it into the center opening of the label holder.  You can find plastic at a fabric store or you can use an old shower curtain.  You could also just leave it open in the center.  At first I struggled with how to attach them, but finally realized that glueing 3 sides down with a glue gun was the perfect solution.  Leaving the top open will allow you to slip in a small piece of paper that labels the basket.

 So, now I have an organized mud room - well at least 1/2 of it is.  This is where I have to admit that I am somewhat of a project queen who has a tendency to start projects and then leave them in various states of completion.  However, the worst section in now nicely organized and one of these days I will get around to finishing the rest up!

So, that is day 1 of my new crafting blog.  I have never done a tutorial before and this is a project I did a while ago - so I did not take lots of pictures along the way.  Hopefully, it is clear enough that you can figure it out if you are in the mood to give it a try!