What Martha doesn't tell you

Several weeks ago I was reading a friend's blog and she told about doing this craft. I thought it looked fun and bookmarked it to do as valentines for Little's class at school.

Now, I should know better than take anything crafty from Martha Stewart at face value. I got married in November and that Christmas received a subscription to Living (loved it). The February issue had chocolate bowls made with melted chocolate and balloons listed as a Good Thing. I attempted this treat and the chocolate all over my walls when my balloons popped was considered by all present - not a good thing.

Still, I dove in to this crayon endeavor 'cause Lauren did it with her kids so it must work. There are four easy steps listed that one must follow to reach the desired result of perfectly color proportioned heart shaped crayons. After having completed the morning of crayon making bliss, I would write the directions to look more like this:

1. You will need a substantial amount of old crayons; twice as many as you would think you would need. More than any mother of a four year old actually has on hand so you will want to solicit the help of a nearby preschool or children's minister (that's what I did) and see if they will let you go diving for broken crayons.

2. You will need to peel the paper off of all these crayons - yes, that which has been held in the sweaty little palms of children so long that the papers are somewhat STUCK to them. Your fingernails will be ruined and you may even bleed (that's what I did) but this step is a necessity that you might have forgotten to calculate into prep time at first glance (that's what I did).

3. Parents can use the knife to chop crayons into pea-size pieces, and depending on the age of their children, take care to keep colors separate so kids can combine them as they like. If your kids are younger, than keeping the colors separate is of no use because they will dump them into the baking tin in a "willy-nilly" fashion (that's what mine did).

4. Allow oven to preheat to 150 degrees while you keep your children from eating the pretty pea size crayon pieces they should be filling the tin with (you got it - that's what mine did).

5. Bake just until the waxes have melted, 15 to 20 minutes.

6. Remove the shapes after they have cooled. If they stick, place tray in the freezer for an hour, and the crayons will pop out.

7. Tell your daughter, "No sweetie," when she looks up at you and says, "It's so pretty. Now I can eat it."