Making Valentines

I used to make Crayon Cupcakes on a regular basis when I was a kid, melting down the little remaining nubs  of spent crayons into a multicolored new one.  I'd been meaning to do this with Zaxxon for a while as his bucket of crayons had a ton of broken pieces at the bottom, and finally did a few weeks ago while we had some friends over.  Then my friend pointed out that these would make really good Valentine treats, and they don't even contain sugar!  She declared that she would be making them for her kindergartener's class, and I decided to do the same as soon as I found out that Zaxxon's preschool would be doing a Valentine exchange.

I got some crayons pretty cheap (I was going to get some from a dollar store, but then lucked out that a bunch of Crayola were on clearance when a nearby store closed) and I took care of unwrapping them.  (My office now smells like crayon wax, mmm...)  I broke most of them into little pieces, though Zaxxon helped a little.

Then we put all the little pieces into cupcake liners.  I actually had to encourage him to spread the colors out, he was starting to just put the same colors together in each one.

Bake at 250 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes and Ta da!  You have Crayon Cupcakes!

Rather than purchasing store-bought Valentines to deliver them with, I just cut up pieces of cardstock into kid-sized cards.  Zaxxon's teachers requested that the kids write their own names on the "from" line so they can practice writing their names, so I had him do that.  It took us a couple of installments, because he had to do it 24 times!  (I've found it strange, both at Christmas and now, that Zaxxon can like writing so much, that he will write his name on anything if given the opportunity, but every time I ask him to sign something, he decides to play around rather than write his name properly.  Sheesh, kids!)

On the front of each card, I wrote "You brighten my day."  Then we used glue dots to attach the crayon on the inside, and Zaxxon sealed them with a sticker

I also had the boys make Valentines for family.  Kal'El made some paintings, which I later cut into cards.

He scribbled on them too, once I'd addressed them

Zaxxon also made some paintings that we turned into cards.  He did the cutting himself

I wrote "Happy Valentine's Day" and he wrote the recipient's names and signed them.

These collective projects were quite involved and time-consuming, especially since Zaxxon got sick partway through creating them, but we had a lot of fun nevertheless.  Love kids and holiday celebrations!