Might as well be my inaugural blog........oh....and I made some cool stuff!

I don't even want to look at the date of the last blog I wrote - I think it was last June.  I could bore you with all of my lame excuses (for the 3 of you that read this) as to why I haven't written in so long.  So far I've come up with:

1.  I've been really crazy busy at work.
2. I've had writer's block.
3. My dog ate my computer (she's been such a pig lately that this one isn't that far out there).
4. My future self came back and told me that something that I would write in the last 6 months would cause parts of the world to implode and therefore NOT writing would really be saving the world.
5. I lost the ability to type the letter "A" and nobody would get nthing tht I cme up with.
6. It's not you, it's me.....

Instead of dragging these very obviously real possibilities out on the webbernet I've decided to show you what Maddie and I did today instead.  (No pig dogs were harmed in the writing of this blog).

We made Crayons.  Okay so we did not actually make crayons, but we did melt down her supply of nubs to make some pretty funky NEW crayons.  The project chewed up a good couple of hours of what would have otherwise been an afternoon of whining, siging and f*&ing Peppa Pig.

Maddie has a box of old crayons that is HUGE.  I hate old crayons so I buy her a new box about once a month.  Add that to all of the free crayons that she scores and.....needless to say we have loads. 

The crayon box is the bane of my existence.  Her favorite thing to do is dump it on the living room floor so she can see all of her options.  The nubs get ground into the carpet, their teeny tiny bits of paper peppering the landscape in a fashion that could only be described as crayon mass murder sight.

I have often thought of just throwing them away, but it seems a bit wasteful.  I've thought of donating them to her playgroup, but who has time or mental capacity to remember to actually load the box into the car and bring it to playgroup?  Sadly, not I.

So today, in a fit of rage and boredom I decided that the crayons needed a new lease on life (one not encased in paper).

We started by soaking the crayons in water to get the paper off.  I filled our kitchen sink in warm water and we 'husked' the crayons one by one. 

When they were de-papered we separated them by color and shade into different bowls (yes I am borderline OC a fact that Maddie will just have to get used to in me and in the genes that I have undoubtably handed down to her). 

Then we found a small baking tray that my mom sent us last valentines day with little heart shapes.  We broke up the crayons and filled the tray.

The tray went into the oven at about 325 F.  We checked every 5 minutes until the crayons had melted. 

Took them out and popped the tray in the fridge. 


When they were cold they popped out of the mold.  And VOILA - new crayons.

We got a bit crazy after the first 2 batches of hearts and decided to move on to bigger and badder crayon combos (I seriously had so many crayons to use up).

I took a larger muffin tin and loaded the crayons into paper muffin cups.  For these we mixed our colors with wild abandon and made some crayons that looked like Reeces Peanutbutter cups would if you had ever taken a hit of acid (I never have so I am really going on testimony for this one). 

Maddie had a great time sorting out shades and blending different colors.  I got to throw away every last scrap of crayon paper that was left in the house and the dog was left bewildered yet intrigued by the scent coming out of the oven.  All in all - a good day!

Kittyn