Treasure hunt

This week's Unplugged project theme was "stone." We decided to paint rocks with crayons as seen here. Amazingly many others participating in the Unplugged project came up with the same idea (I saw it on the Crafty Crow). Great minds think alike! Here are our "treasure stones":

Anastasia loved the initial stone hunt where we took our basket into the yard and found some light-colored stones. She really got into it! Then we took the stones in and washed them in a bowl of water with an old nail brush and a little dish soap. She spent about an hour on this task, just washing, and scrubbing the rocks. When she finished scrubbing, she put some back in the water to wash again. I think I will start her on dishes tomorrow! haha

Now the fun part, which was a little less fun for her, and really fun for me. I put the rocks on a foil-lined sheet in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. I took them out and we melted crayons on them. For Anastasia, I held the stone for her with a rag because it was too hot for her to do on her own. We are learning the word "hot" so it was actually a good activity as she could touch the stone without getting burned, but it was hot enough to make my point. She liked the crayon melting effect and we did a few together. I ended up doing most of them alone while she napped as it took a while and I had to heat them up again.

After finishing the batch, I placed them in her sand box for a 18-month old appropriate "treasure hunt." She loved it!

This is some awesome Easter Egg Hunt prep if you ask me! She should be a pro by next Spring!After melting some of the crayons I decided to pull the wrappers off and make a set of muffin-tin crayons. I melted the crayons for about 6 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees in cupcake wrappers. I then stuck them in the freezer for a while. They turned out great and looked like Reeses cups, but A. didn't quite get the idea of coloring with them and made a tower out of them instead.

Anastasia is currently carrying around her basket of treasure all around the living room. Definitely our favorite project yet!

And LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL BATHROOM FLOOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

Nick finished the grout last night, and I had my doubts prior to his "grouting" but now... I am in love. With my husband of course ;) and his floor laying abilities. Perhaps it is hard to appreciate but if you had seen the gaping chasm where one should be walking, you would totally understand. Guess what is going in now? The toilet... hopefully!! The wellspring of cursing I have been hearing worries me a bit...

Edit: After I finished my post, my toilet was in! I have to manually flush it until tomorrow probably, but beggars can't be choosers!!!