Today I feel insipired

Last night I was surfing craft blogs and trying to find simple crafts for kids. With a baby on the way I feel the need to be ready with things for my other kiddo's to do, for alas, I can already hear the cries of "Mom I'm bored!" as I try to establish a routine with a new little one.
My sweet college roommate Laurie (whose blog is linked on the side bar as Small and Simple) has some awesome ideas, but it was from another blog on her website that I found some great inspiration. I've linked to it as well. The site is called Serving Pink Lemonade.
These gals have some great, simple, and inexpensive ideas for entertaining your little ones, not to mention tasty food ideas and some great decorating stuff as well. I've already got a list of the ones I'd like to try, and a list full of things like felt and googly eyes to invest in. I mean who doesn't want a marble race track made out of pool noodles, or a race car track or cookies made out of felt. And did I mention bubble snakes and painting the driveway with water! So creative and so easy.
Well today Trace was out of school and he was bored (of course) and it doesn't help that I have until Tuesday before he gets sent back. So what's a mom to do but try an idea from Serving Pink Lemonade. So we made crayons!Now I learned something in this process. We have a LOT of broken crayons in our crayon box, and if I were younger this would have really bothered me. I was a bit on the crazy side about keeping art supplies nice and neat and in their place. Ahh, the things we learn to let go of as we become parents!

The next step was to unwrap the darn crayons. Here I learned something else. Crayola's are darn hard to unwrap. The paper is glued to the crayon (or so it would seem) and those buggers were tough. I have the crayon under my fingernails to prove it! My helpers were awesome and would not be detoured!
Look at that mess! Notice that all the tiny shreds are Crayola brand...blah! I do think it made a pretty picture though!
Next we got out mommies old muffin tin (I say old because the last time I used it it left flecks of non stick coating in my cupcakes! YUCK!) But I kept it around knowing I'd find some use for it. And here it is. I let the kids pick whatever colors they wanted to make they're crayons, then we filled the rest of the tins with colors from the same color family (a good lesson on the color wheel!), then we baked at 350 for maybe 5 minutes, just until they were all melty goodness.
And this was our end product. Pretty piles of goop! We let them cool, turned over the pan, and they popped right out.
The kids had a blast twisting and turning them to see what colors they could make come out of their new crayons.
Kena was super excited to see her crayon trail turn colors without even having to turn the crayon. Ahh the magic of melted colors.
Jax got in on the act and really enjoyed drawing himself.
And I think Mason liked them best of all. They are so easy for his little hands to hold onto. It was so much fun, so cheap, and we got to spend some real quality time together doing it. Stay tuned for next week when we make Jelly Bean Bracelets. Yeah baby! Thank you Pink Lemonade!