Melting Crayons

Last week I did a little craft project. I melted down Toddler's broken crayons into new, unbroken shapes.

This is what they looked like before:

They were actually even worse because in this picture I'd already taken out all of the smallest, most broken pieces.

I then chopped them up even more so they would fit in the silicone mold better:

I then put them in the silicone mold I got from the dollar store (which was from Halloween and was a mold of pumpkin shapes. Toddler saw it and said "Balloons!" though, so they're balloons. Which is better than pumpkins.) and put it in the oven at 275 degrees for about ten minutes:

Took them out, swirled the colors with a toothpick, and let them cool on the stove top. Once they'd cooled for about 25 minutes, I put them in the fridge to cool them even faster. (If they cool too fast in the beginning they might crack.) Then I popped them out. And we have balloon crayons!

All of Toddler's crayons filled three batches of the silicone mold. I don't know if it was just cause it was a cheapy silicone mold from the dollar store, or if it was something about the crayons, but after I was finished it was kind of twisted and warped and I just tossed it. But it totally worked for this craft! A dollar well spent.

Toddler really likes her new balloon crayons. She played with them for like an hour on the day that I did this.

Two new quiet book pages & Giveaway

A little while ago I was contacted by Amy Pincock from the popular craft blog Serving Pink Lemonade. She asked if I'd like to do a review and giveaway of her new book, Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children, for my Quiet Book Blog. I said yes! 

I got her adorable book in the mail a couple weeks ago, and this weekend I made two quiet book pages using her templates and instructions. I really like how they turned out; I think they're really cute and I think Toddler and Baby will have fun playing with them. I'm glad I had this motivation to make some more quiet book pages.

I made a sock matching page:

And a "seasons tree" page:

I really like them. I've wanted to do pages like them for a long time, but haven't actually started because they seemed like too much work. The templates and instructions from the book were really helpful and gave me the boost I need to make them!

I think I'm going to make a washing machine page (like this one) to go next to the socks. I want to do another page to go with the seasons tree, but I'm not sure what yet. I'll figure it out.

And (how cool is this) I get to do a giveaway of this book, too! If you head over to this page on my Quiet Book Blog, you can enter to win a copy of Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children.

Go enter! You might win!