this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Each Thursday, Amy at MotherLoad puts together a list of fun activities and ideas she's found around the blogosphere.   She encourages readers to not only try out these great ideas, but to blog about them as well.  This week there's a contest involved, so I definitely wanted to throw my hat into the ring.

Experiment: New crayons out of broken ones using a baking dish.  I've been saving up broken crayons (Bug has no interest in the broken ones), so this was great motivation to actually do it!  This idea came from Daily Danny and was included in the notebook from August 7.

Procedure: I spent a lot of time unwrapping the crayons.  Bug tried to help, but since it wasn't even easy for me, it was pretty hard for him.  After they came out of the oven, we cooled them in the fridge and then used cookie cutters to cut shapes.  As soon as they were completely cooled, we were ready to draw!  They aren't very pretty, but they still make some cool colors.

Conclusion: I really liked the fact that we made these in a baking sheet and used the cookie cutters.  Bug had fun cutting shapes, and really that was the only part of this activity that he could actively help with - though watching the crayons melt in the oven was fun for him too!  I'll start saving up the broken crayons to do this again, but the unwrapping was so time consuming that I'll try and unwrap them as I collect them.  The bottom line is anytime I can breathe new life into something we're no longer using anymore, then I'm happy!