Hello....Is this thing on?

I know, I really should decide if I'm doing a blog or not. I have a couple projects photographed and ready to be shared with the masses, so I'll try to get them out this week. To apologize, today is a two-fer!

Tomorrow is my son's Valentine swap at preschool and we needed 20 valentines and I wanted to make a pinterest project for his teacher. Got BOTH done today, yay productivity!

Crayon and Pencil Vases

Inspired by the adorable pencil vases trending on pinterest lately, I set out to the dollar store to create one for Evan's teacher for Valentine's Day. I got two packs of 16 count pencils and the round vase for $3 from the dollar store. I ran some other errands and thought since it's preschool, wouldn't crayons be cute? So I picked up a 64 count box for $3. I had the square vase at home, it's been circulating around my house forever with no real purpose because it's so narrow.

All you need are the above mentioned supplies and a hot glue gun. Put a stripe of hot glue on one side of your crayon or pencil and put in place on the vase. You only need to hold it for a minute, it will set quickly. It's really that simple! I laid out the crayons first to put them in color order, but now I think, I may have left it more random, it may have looked more young, which is what I was going for. I worked from the bottom, and realized as I worked around I'd be short a few crayons, so I purposely put 32 crayons on the bottom and the remaining 32 on top, leaving a gap all the way down the glass. I put in the pencils to fill the space and I actually love the way it turned out! Since I had the pencils and the square vase laying around, I whipped up that one too and will give them both to his teacher as a set.

A couple crayons came loose immediately, only two or three. I was working with a 4 year old highly curious about the process, so I'm sure that happened due to lack of concentration. No big deal, I just stripped away the dried glue and re-did them. It's holding together perfectly now!

Creature in the sea Valentines

OK, clearly my next project needs to be DIY light boxes so my pictures are clearer. I'll work on it.

Evan needed 20 valentines to share for his party. Yet again, I was inspired by fish valentines that were circulating on pinterest, but I wanted to be a little more homemade about it. So I bought a Wilton sea life candy mold, red and pink melts, and candy sticks. This was my first time with candy molds, though I've free handed on wax paper with melts for cake decorating embellishments. The candy molds seemed even harder, not sure how that is possible. But to get into tiny little spaces in those molds was making me crazy!!! I eventually ended up using a toothpick for most of the details, which worked well, but time consuming. After I got 20 made, I got on the computer and made up my own little valentines that are the size of business cards. The cards say "Happy Valentine's Day! Of all the creatures in the sea, I'm glad we swim in the same school." Cute and not girly:) Evan will sign them all in the morning and I can package them up.

Yet another unemployed holiday saved by pinterest. How did we ever survive without it?!?!