When AJ is out of town I turn into Crazy Super Mom. I create lists of crafts the kids and I will do together and tackle completely uncharacteristic projects like making curtains. It’s bizarre. I’m ridiculously and unnecessarily productive when he’s away.

In preparation for his trip this week, I ordered this adorable little silicone mold so we could melt down old crayons into fun new shapes.

I got obsessed with the idea after seeing it on Pinterest. We have boatloads of crayons because we go to boadloads of crappy restaurants that give them to the kids so it seemed like a fun way to repurpose them.

So, after dinner tonight, I turned on Tarzan for a little background ambiance and got out all the materials to make crayons. This project started out with lots and lots of promise and happiness. OK, let’s be honest. I was forcing this down everyone’s throat. I was going to be Super Mom tonight and no one was going to stand in my way. I was going to spend quality time with my kids, dammit.

{Avery, completely uninterested in the crayons. We had to pause the movie while she posed for a picture.}

{Nolan with hat-hair, See See (the horse) and his paci – always}

Step 1: First you have to take all the paper off the crayons. Holy hell. This was much harder than I thought it was going to be. About two crayons in, I realize that this is a project that mommy is going to be doing on her own. Avery tried to take the paper off of one crayon, said “I’m frustrated” and left me at the kitchen counter with Nolan to go watch Tarzan. Nolan is a great kid, but he’s not the kid I was really banking on to help me with this step, ya know? He saw the bananas sitting in a nearby bowl, said “nana” and that was that with him. He just ate the whole time. Completely useless. So here I am, standing at the kitchen counter cursing the Crayola company for making the glue on the wrappers much, much stronger than I remember it being when I was a kid – and completely unnecessarily so. It’s not like if the wrapper falls off we will no longer know what color the crayon is rendering it unusable. About 40 crayons and one hour later, my fingers are shaking from being so exhausted. So I did what any normal, rational mother would have done. I broke out the pocket knife. Not just a run-of-the-mill pocket knife. More like a pocket knife for a hunter or a military man – someone who will depend on this knife to keep them alive and safe. I kept having visions of me slicing my finger off and having to rush all of us to the ER and explaining to them what happened. But once the knife came out, the remaining 40 crayons were done in a snap. I considered giving Avery a knife to help whip through them, but decided that wouldn’t be smart.

{A necessary tool when doing crafts with your children.}

Step 2: When all the paper is off, you’re supposed to break the crayons into small pieces. I’ve been yelling at my kids for years to stop breaking the crayons but guess who didn’t have any interest in breaking crayons tonight?? So I broke the crayons myself.

Step 3: Avery helped me (FINALLY!) put the pieces into the mold. She picked out which two colors went into each star. Oh, who am I kidding? I told her what colors went into each star. I didn’t want to end up with ugly crayons after all of this. I could have sliced my finger off for these crayons! And I really do think I have a blister on my right pointer finger from trying to peel off the stupid crayon paper. That’s my iPhone finger! My productivity is probably going to go down at work because of this crayon project.

{Spectacular color combinations if I do say so myself.}

Step 4: I put the mold on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil (in case the crayon juice flowed over the edges, I didn’t want it to get on the cookie sheet). The oven had been pre-heated to 250 degrees and we “baked” them for about 15 minutes.

Moment of cuteness: Nolan peeking in to the oven to see the progress said “Oh! Cool!”

So here they are in all their glory. In only 4 easy steps…

As much as I love the idea of doing crafty stuff, I am the queen of making it harder and more expensive than it has to be. These six crayons took me two hours to make. But we did it together (ahem…) so that’s all that matters.

MORE STUFF I’VE MADE:

Silhouettes for Lazy People

Weekend Project: Decoupage Shelves

I Need a DIY Intervention