Ben’s Blog

This week’s FFF theme is “hope”. Maybe a bit of a stretch, but I just took these and they’re darn cute. And nothing says hope like a little boy with rain boots and an umbrella, hoping for a bit of a rainshower.

And more crayon melting fun….

After I read this post I was smacking myself in the head… why didn’t I think of juice boxes as crayon molds?! We didn’t have a juice box on hand, so I gave Ben a vanilla milk to down… except, he is two, and he wouldn’t give me the empty carton after he was done.

Ok. Fine.

I had recently dug out the Halloween cookie cutters, so I thought I’d give them a go. I melted the crayons in muffin liners (brilliant!) as directed in the post linked above. Kris suggested the (also brilliant) idea of putting wax paper under the cookie cutters. I may throw in some tinfoil next time too, since the hot crayons melted the wax paper onto the plate a little.

I am too impatient to wait for one layer to cool before adding another, so I just mixed the colors together in the cookie cutters. Someone with a bit more skill could probably make some neat marble effects. Or something.

The pumpkin crayon broke coming out of the mold, but the witch is still holding up. These crayons are neat, but Ben has trouble actually coloring with them since they’re harder to hold than a regular round crayon. But he’s breaking a lot of crayons these days, and I am physically unable to keep from buying super-cheap back to school crayons, so we have plenty to melt. I picked up a bat, cat, and ghost on sale at the grocery store today too. All the cookie cutters I’m using are metal, and I just tossed the witch and pumpkin in the dishwasher, so here’s hoping the residual crayon washes off.

My willing assistant (just not willing to give up his milk carton!). I love it. He’s old enough now that I can say “hold up the witch and smile for me” and he’ll do it.

Kris introduced me to this great blog a while back and I’m really enjoying it… every week she posts a theme and everyone is invited to come up with craft that fits with the theme. I’ve yet to actually do this, but I do enjoy recreating some of the crafts she has done.

I’m sure this one gives you seven different kinds of cancer, but we didn’t huff the melting plastic or anything like that. Besides, who could resist a return to a favorite 80s childhood craft?

Here’s the link to the project itself but basically

you find yourself some nice #6 plastic (yes, that’s one of the “bad” ones! We used berry containers)

and give your child some sharpie markers

(this will make him very happy, as he is not usually allowed to have them).

Cut the plastic into smaller pieces (or you could do this beforehand, if you’re the reckless type) and pop ‘em in the oven on 350 until they shrink. Waiting is hard.

Here’s the finished product, suitable for dropping in an envelope and mailing to grandparents who complain that they are missing out on every aspect of your child’s existence now that you so thoughtlessly moved him three states away from them. Ahem.

Back in February, Parent’s Magazine had this cute craft idea for melting crayons in muffin tins to make newly-shaped crayons in fun colors. I made some for Ben back when we still lived in Lexington, but didn’t take any pictures. A few weeks ago, Target had silicone ice cube trays on sale, so I got a bunch and made a new batch.

The crayons were a pain to peel, but other than that this was pretty easy. I threw some old glitter crayons in the mix too, so the crayons are fun and sparkly. The silver crayon I added also made for some nice shininess.

A few pics of the finished products:

Sorry they’re blurry, but you get the idea. The star shaped crayons are a much bigger hit, but they do crumble a bit more easily and those little points were a bear to get out of the ice cube trays… perhaps a bit more patience on my part would have helped?

While I worked with the hot melty wax, Ben used this other ice cube tray to demonstrate his knowledge of one-to-one correspondence.   Gifted, I tell ya… totally gifted.

I’ve been wanting to make Ben a set of playsilks for a while now. I was going to make them for Christmas but I didn’t get around to it, and he wasn’t really into imaginative play yet then anyway. Now that we’re all moved and settled, I decided I’d make them for his birthday this year.

Playsilks are, basically, squares of fabric, an open-ended toy that can be whatever the child wants them to be. Superhero cape, “water” for toy boats to sail, wrapping for a present, blanket for a doll, peek-a-boo device.

I followed the directions here but there are a ton of blog posts about this process. The silk painting idea here looks really interesting.

I used Kool-Aid and some Easter egg dye I got on sale after the big day. The silks came from Dharma Trading Company . I pretty much followed Stash Junkie’s directions, with a few modifications, so do see the link above for a more detailed description of the process.

First, I soaked the silks in a bowl of warm water and a splash of vinegar:

While they were soaking, I mixed the dyes with a couple of cups of warm water and a little vinegar. The directions suggested using mason jars with lids and shaking to mix the color, but I could only find one jar and no lids so I used large drinking glasses instead. They actually worked really well; the wide mouth of the glass made stirring the silks much easier and I didn’t have any problem getting the dyes to dissolve.

Put the glasses in a pan of water on the stove and bring to a simmer, then add the silks (1 per glass) and squish to help them absorb the color. The darker colors (both Kool- Aid and Easter egg dye) took longer than the lighter ones but when they’re done the water should be almost clear or milky.

Rinse with cold water (I didn’t have any color run out when I rinsed) and hang to dry.

Both types of dye worked well. The bonus with the red and purple Kool-Aid is the silks smelled pretty yummy for a good long while. Using the cups on the stove made the silks a little tie dyed. If you don’t want that to happen you should probably use a bigger container so the silk isn’t so bunched up. I thought it made a neat effect, though, so I kept doing them this way.

Here are the finished products:

Left to right we have (K=Kool-Aid, E=Easter egg dye): Grape (K), blue (E), lemonaide (K), teal (E), lemon lime (K), orange (K), melon (a mix of pink and orange E), and cherry (K).

I got some odd looks buying this much Kool-Aid at the grocery store. When I explained what it was for, though, and that it wasn’t simply all for Ben to drink, the cashier got really excited and started suggesting other potential dyes (coffee, blueberries, beets). I’ll save those for another time but for now I just wish Kool-Aid came in more flavors. I’m thinking about getting some different sized silks and trying a little color mixing next.

The silks were a huge hit… they couldn’t wait till his birthday, Ben needed them as soon as he saw what I was doing. The silk is light and cool, and they stuff easily into the toy box when I can manage to put them away. He loves carrying them around, piling them up, waving them, playing peek-a-boo, wrapping toys up in them, and making them into hats and capes. As you can see, they’re a lot of fun.