Crayon Heart Sun Catchers

I'm slowly but steadily trudging my way through the backlog of blog-worthy thing I've been up to the last couple weeks.  I've been busy!  Here's another one inspired by the recent Pinterest party.  A friend made these during the party, and gave me the leftover crayons and crayon shavings because I hold the dubious title of "only one with a kid" among that group of friends.  But hey- free crayons!  And even if I hadn't had some donated supplies, this would be a great way to recycle old broken crayons.

This project was fun, and messy, and a hit with the little guy, even though I may have lost some years off of my life because I was in constant terror that he'd touch the iron.  All's well that ends well, though.

Supplies

• Crayon shavings (use a pencil sharpener on crayons)
• Wax paper
• Newspaper
• Ironing board
• Iron
• String

Directions

1. Turn on your iron to very low heat.  Set aside.
2. Cover your ironing board in newspaper.  You are going to make a mess.  :)
3. Spread out a large sheet of waxed paper.  Sprinkle crayon shavings in a light layer.  If you use too many shavings in one spot, the heart won't be translucent in the light when you're done. Fold over wax paper, cover with newspaper, and lightly iron.  Peek at your waxed paper from time to time to see if the crayon is melting and spreading nicely.
4. Set aside ironed wax paper mess and repeat with remaining wax paper and crayon shavings until you're all out of shavings.  Alternate colors, do gradations of the same color, play with it to see the different looks you can get. 
5. When your melted crayon messes are all cooled off and the wax paper is stiff, cut out hearts shapes in different sizes.  Do NOT peel off the wax paper.  If you do, you'll just have exposed crayon that will flake apart and your heart will curl up.  The wax paper both keeps it all together and helps keep a firm shape.
6. Poke a hole in the top of each heart and string up to a curtain rod in a window.
7. Oooh and aaah at your artistic skills.
8. Gently wipe down your iron with a wet paper towel or cloth after it has cooled, to make sure there's no color from the crayons.
9. Sweep or vacuum up a bajillion little flecks of crayon shavings.  I warned you.
10. Oooh and aah again.