We came up with this cute idea for an alternative to candy for Valentine’s Day, inspired by the adorable favors Lisa made for Lucas’s numbers & letters 3rd birthday last spring. They’re really pretty simple and easily done with your preschooler or school-age child. Watching the crayons turn from chopped up bits into a whole new shape is so exciting the curious little folk.

To get started you’ll need:

1) a silicone heart mold (if you search around Amazon you will find lots of options in various sizes.)
2) lots of crayons. We ordered ours in the colors we wanted from Amazon: neon, reds, white, and pinks.
3) whatever you’d like to use to package them up

Preheat the oven to 150 – 200°. Take the paper off the crayons. (Great task for little hands!) Then chop the crayons up using an old knife. Arrange them in color groupings you like in the mold. We found that the more batches we did, the better we were at choosing complimentary colors. And pop them in the over for 15-20 minutes. Voila!

Wait until they’re completely cool to take them out of the mold. Packaging ideas are endless, but we came up a few cuties to get your ideas flowing.

For a super simple idea, you can wrap them like candies using tissue paper. Attach a simple tag with “to/from” if your child is passing them out at school.

Or carrot print muslin bags (lots of different sizes available here) using various shades of pinks and reds. You can follow this tutorial we found on Pinterest for cutting carrots into hearts stamps. We’ve been using it for dinner this month too and it’s such a fun little surprise at the table!

You could totally order your supplies today and have them in time for a project next week! Tag us on Instagram if you make them. We’d love to see!