$1

we have always been a fairly crafty household, we like to make things. blankets, aprons, cinnamon rolls, cookies. okay i like to make things and the boys have learned to like to help. well lately i've been planning peanut's 1st birthday party. yes i know, i have 3 months until he turns one but in my defense i have 3 kids and his birthday is a week before thanksgiving. for both my sanity and our finances, i have to split it up so i don't get overwhelmed. plus, we all know that i just ♥ planning parties. and yes, i tend to go a little overboard with the decorations, (special ordering pig-shaped balloons? yeah I did that.) making my own invitations, and making sure there is always a home-made cake.

anyways, i digress.

so recently when surfing the internet for fun and cheap craft projects (i was looking for playdoh recipes) i stumbled across a mom who made chunky crayon melts using broken crayons. except unlike the one's i think we melted in 4th grade in a microwave--these were cute! and i thought to myself "wow, these would be perfect for toddlers just learning to color." i bookmarked the site and didn't think much more about it.

until i went to target and as part of the back to school sale, they had a 24 pack of Crayola crayons for $.25 a box. twenty-five cents people! this is when i had my light bulb moment and realized i could make the melts and use them as party favors for peanut's birthday. i mean yes he's turning one, but his brothers, cousins and playgroup friends are all a little older. well after realizing that target was completely sold out, we went to wal-mart (they price match, yo) and bought 16 boxes of crayons. that's 384 crayons for $4.

so after the kiddos went to bed i painstakingly peeled the wrappers off of 4 boxs of crayons. (and FYI, those things have adhesive on them now...i had to use a box cutter exacto knife thingy, to help). then when the kids woke up we started our project.
first we took the bag of naked crayons and broke them into small pieces, about 1/2 inch-1inch in length. the kids loved this! then we dropped these into a non-stick mini muffin pan, matching colors. sorta matching colors. they are 2 and 3, and i just went with it. i preheated the oven to 265 degrees.after each little tin was about halfway full, i popped the pan in the oven. you want to ''cook'' the crayons just until they are mostly melted, you don't want them too soupy. for us, this took about 8 minutes. remove them from the oven and let cool another 8 minutes or so, then place (the now cooled) pan into the freezer. freeze for about 20 minutes

turn your pan over and they should fall right out. viola!
4 boxes of 24 crayons, made 24 melts. total cost? one dollar.

we made 2 batches so each little party guest will get 5 melts and a small memo notepad. i think that the kids will love it and mom can keep it in the diaper bag to whip out anywhere where a bit of distraction may be needed. i plan on buying the notepads in another week or two (when they will be on clearance), jazzing them up with a few robot stickers and we should have goody bags for about a $1 each!