There are a few things about parenting that make me cringe:

1. I don't think that kids need to have a "playdate".  At my house, they can just play. 
2. A child's bedroom does not need to have a theme.  Here, the theme is "its your bedroom".
3. Similarly, kids parties do not need to have a theme.  To me, an appropriate theme is "its my birthday".
4. Gift bags for birthday parties = thorn in my side.  Giving gift bags to every kid is tricky; its difficult to give things that are treasures AND inexpensive.  Usually the two do not go hand in hand.  If you're going to give gift bags to every kid, I totally get why the treasures can land on the disposable side - buying stuff for every guest at the party can be a very expensive endeavor.  But here's the thing - after going to party after party where they get gift bags, the kids sort of expect to both give and receive them.

This was Sophie's first birthday party with other kids, and she really wanted to give away some great treasures - and by that I mean candy.  I let her pick out two of her favorites (smarties and pixie stix) and some little gift bags in which they could be placed.  To find those three items, we spent 30 minutes in the party store, 27 of which were spent with me saying "no" to hundreds of other items.  When we left, we had plates, napkins, gift bags, candy, and two plastic treasure chests (with locks!) that Sophie planned to use as "serving dishes" for the remaining candy.  We added flavored lip glosses and mini play doh containers to the mix, and we were on the way to having decent (and not totally empty) gift bags.

I really like making something for the gift bags, and I also like using things that we already have at home.  For Martin's parties we've made mix CDs, and last year we made tattoos for each kid.  This year, we decided to make our own crayon hearts.

To start, we collected bits of broken crayons from all over the house.  If broken crayon bits could be exchanged for cash, we'd be rich.


The kids peeled off the wrappers and broke the crayons into little bits.  Then, they arranged them into different color combinations in the heart-shaped silicone tray.


We placed the silicone tray on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven at 200 degrees F until they were good and melty. We took them out when some of the crayons still had visible shapes).  After it cooled completely, we popped the crayons out of the silicone mold.


They turned out to be a pretty good addition to the gift bags, and a really good project for the kids.  They liked making different color combinations and thought it was fun to start out with broken stuff and end up with something new.  We'll definitely make these again.  Maybe the next time somebody comes over for a playdate.