Ice Markers!

Has anyone seen the creative ways people are recycling old crayons?

Lucky and Charm each received a heart shaped crayon from classmates for Valentine's Day this year. They were made by melting together pieces of old crayons.  How clever is that?  I'm keeping my eye out for shallow cookie pans with fun shapes so that we can duplicate that project.

Related to recycling crayons, but on the marker front, our music teacher brought 'ice markers' to class last month and our kids loved creating art with them.  We decided to try this activity at home, so we rounded up our old markers and prepared them for a Valentine's craft by filling a $1 store plastic ice tray (they come in two packs) with water.  We placed our old markers in the tray and let the water suck out the ink.  We let them sit and mixed them up every 5 minutes or so.  After about 15 minutes we stuck them in the freezer.

Once they froze, they were ready to go:

The kids love them (making them was half the fun!), and it's a great way to get one more use out of old markers!  Let me know if you give this a try!

P.S. Please no peanut gallery comments about the posting of a 'Valentine Craft' after St. Patrick's Day.  Clearly, we are challenged in the holiday order department around here.  Also, I was too busy enjoying the nice weather this weekend (80 degrees for St. Patrick's Day!!), eating green pancakes and drinking green milk shakes (and green beer:)), and reading this little book called The Hunger Games (COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!) to write up a fresh post.  Those are my reasons why this post in the middle of March is about Valentine's Day.  Really, it's about hearts.  Hearts are year round shapes, so maybe I'm good after all!

Regardless, I hope you all had a splendid weekend!