Crayon crafts and baby blankies

Today we went through the house and tossed out or organized what we could to prepare for our move. Savannah's craft drawers got a big cleaning today but I wasn't sure what to do with her enormous shoebox box of crayons. Savannah was a compulsive peeler of crayon labels from ages two through, well, now, so most of her crayons had been peeled. We sorted them into color piles and baked them in the oven to make new crayons. This will be perfect for an upcoming unit we are doing on nature and textures where she'll be collecting things she likes from outside and making rubbings. Savannah was very interested in watching the crayons melt in the oven into "crayon muffins." Got some broken crayon pieces of your own? Here's the recipe:

• sort broken and peeled crayons into piles of your liking (they can be totally mixed if you want or in theme colors such as primary, patriotic, etc)
• preheat oven to 350
• fill a muffin tin with your crayons
• turn off the oven and place the crayons inside, keep the light on so you can watch - they go pretty quickly
• remove the melted crayons and let cool overnight or place them in the freezer for 10 minutes to cool

Sorting the crayons. I like to do it this way because I think it gives more depth to children's drawings. Most people just mix them haphazardly.

Sorting the broken bits into a muffin tin.

Savannah can't take her eyes off the "crayon muffins."

Some of the finished products. We ended up making 2 dozen!

I also finished making some gifts for my new nephew. He's getting a very boy themed blanky and burp cloths with fire trucks and cars. I was hoping to find fire engine fleece but no luck, so no matchy, matchy. Every baby needs something colorful, soft, machine washable, and thick enough to keep them warm in cold cars or to avoid painful head bonkings on hard surface floors. Here's my tutorial for this baby blanket.

I'm hoping for a girl since I know girls. I think a boy would be overwhelming for me. On the bright side Kevin and I have agreed on one single boy name over the past five years so at least if we did have a boy the name is already settled. He doesn't like any of my boy names and I don't like any of his, with this one exception. If we have a girl I don't really know what we'd name her. It would involve another one of our great debates.