melted pastel rocks

I wanted to do an Easter craft. The idea is that you boil eggs and while they're hot decorate them with crayons as they melt on the hot shell. I couldn't find white eggs anywhere so we flagged it.

Thinking some more about it, I doubt we would've eaten them with the outside coated in wax- so maybe it was a good thing. I know the kids would've wanted to decorate more than one egg so it would've been a bit wasteful.

Anyway, from all of that I got the idea of heating up rocks in the oven ( I know, I also wonder how my mind gets to these places!...) They didn't take long to get hot and it was really fun watching the pastels melt, blend and run into each other. We used a folded tea towel with some tinfoil on top to protect the table.

I should point out that this is not a craft for young children. I had to talk to my kids at length about how hot the rocks would be and not to touch them with anything but the end of the pastel. They only used longer pastels but both got a wee bit of a fright when they got a bit close- but no burns. I'd say this is best done with 7 year olds and up.

When the rocks had cooled and the wax hardened I sprayed them with a clear polyurethane and displayed some at our front door step- a bit of bright happiness for visitors.