Valentine decorations

I saw these floating around on Pinterest and wanted to try it out. I love how they turned out and Peter loved helping as well! I am labeling it as a "preschool activity" though it needs to have a little more supervision than most due to the grater and iron.

Materials:
wax paper
crayons (with paper off)
cheese grater (Go out and buy yourself a cheap cheese grater from the dollar store. You will thank me later.)
iron
craft paper or old towels for ironing on
scissors

Step one: Lay out one sheet of wax paper and grate crayons on top. You can use whatever colors you want.

Step two: Once you have a generous amount of crayon shavings,
lay another piece of wax paper on top.Step three: Sandwich the wax paper in between craft paper or old towels. (The wax will melt onto the towels, so don't use your good ones! It will also melt onto your iron if you don't use anything!)
Step four: iron. I put mine on a high heat (almost hottest) because I was ironing through the towels and wanted to make sure the wax would melt. You get to be the judge on this one.

Now, if you want it to look REALLY neat, don't iron for very long--just long enough for the wax to melt enough to stick to the wax paper. It will look like this. So cool.If you iron too long, the colors all run together and you get something a little more like this. This looks better if your colors all similar (all shades of reds and pinks or something like that).

Step five: (no picture) draw a heart shape onto the wax paper. I found it easiest to use a black sharpie. I free-handed mine, but you can use a cookie cutter as a stencil if you need to.

Step six: Cut out the hearts and thread a string in the middle of each. (By the way, can you admire this boy's cutting skills? I had no idea he could cut so well. Ha!)

Step seven: Hang on your kitchen window and admire them while you do the dishes.


It might be a little late to make them as a Valentine decoration, but the best part is that you can use any color crayon and cut out any shape you want for other holidays. I'm imagining green shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day or fun striped eggs for Easter. The possibilities are endless!