Here is a boredom buster for you!

Okay, I am sure you are all wondering how my day off went. I know that you want to hear that I enjoyed my day with the boys so much that I have broken my computer addiction, that I hardly noticed that I was away from the computer and that I had to practically force myself to check the email this morning. Sorry to disappoint you!

Even though I chose to have a non computer day for me, it was #2's day to play. Each of the boys get one computer day a week as far as game play goes, and they earn the time they get, up to an hour and a half. So in the morning while #2 was playing his game all of the other boys wanted to watch him play. I know them well enough to know they would have gotten mad at me for trying to get them to do something else, so I hung out in my room and read until his computer time was over.

We didn't make it to the beach. D took them on a walk to the beach Sunday evening and they spent two hours exploring tide pools and etc, so they weren't in a beachy mood yesterday. They did some work in the new workbooks I bought for them to keep them up on the things they learned in school, there was the playing of board games (a ninja turtles game) and we did a fun project together which I will now share with you.

We made crayons. Okay, we didn't manufacture them from scratch, but we did make crayons. Back in February there was an article in Family Fun that gave the idea of using heart shaped cupcake pans to melt down crayons and make new heart shaped crayons to give as Valentines. I thought it was a cute idea, but didn't feel like paying $10 for a pan to melt crayons in. I have begun a small collection of silicone things, including some heart shaped and star shaped ice cube trays which I have used in the past to make kool aid ice cubes, chocolates (silicone molds work great for making chocolates) and now the crayons. We just used the star shaped ones. I wanted to make smaller crayons that they could hold in their hands easily, but I think that a larger star shaped mold would work well also. Unfortunately the crayons left quite a residue in my star molds, and even though crayons are non toxic, I may just designate this mold as my crayon mold. I did find that I could get the mold clean again with a lot of hot water, dish soap and a lot of scrubbing with a brush. If you are going to try this at home I recommend using a non silicone mold, or using one that you don't mind designating as a craft mold. They do also sell small disposable foil pans in heart and star shapes in the baking aisle at our grocery store, and I think they would work too although your crayons might have some lines from the pans.

First you need to make sure your molds are clean and dry. Next you need crayons. If you really want to you can open a new box, but I find this to be a great way to use all those little stubs of crayons that the kids have broken. Make sure all the paper is off of the crayons, arrange them in the molds as desired (they can go a little over the top as they will melt down into the cracks, but if they are too far over the top they will run over the edges. I put my silicone pan on a cookie sheet just in case the crayons ran off the edge. Bake the pan in a 225 degree oven for about ten minutes. Check to see how the melting is going and bake for a little longer if you need to. Once the crayon is all melted remove the pan from the oven. The crayons will set faster if you put the silicone pan in the fridge. After the crayons are set you can remove them and see what you came up with. The picture above is the result of our first set. We each made two crayons. Our were done using broken crayons. I later tried using a crayon sharpener and putting the shavings in, but the colors in that case ran together more and were not as defined in their differences. I recommend using one kind of crayon if you can. Some of ours were RoseArt and Crayola mixed, and one or the other of the brands tended to float to the top when they were melting so instead of that color being where we put it, the color was all on the bottom of the crayon. Also, I can't in good conscience recommend Prang crayons for this. I tried some using them and they were very brittle and the crayons crumbled and broke coming out of the molds. All in all, it was fun, and the boys enjoyed making their rainbow crayons. We will be doing more projects like this one. We would have done more crafts if not for an appointment in the middle of the day. We also watched the first Harry Potter movie as a family last night and we plan on watching the rest of them in order over the next few weeks.

I didn't accomplish as much as I wanted to yesterday, but I did spend a lot of time just being with the boys, and I noticed that their behavior was much better than usual. I think I will be spending less time on the computer and more time with them on a daily basis.