Making a maker.

Making my daughter into a maker.

Maddie wanted to do something special for her class for Valentine's day. I suggested making candies. Just pouring chocolate into molds was a little mundane for me. After all, with a moniker like "Maker and Fixer of Things," I had to go the extra mile. I knew we'd be make something cool, but what I didn't expect was to make a maker.

We started with a lump of scrap polymer clay and a foam heart as a guide.

Then I helped her a little to add an embellishment she made.

The finished form, after baking. I had to add a little clay to the bottom to flare it out so that when we made molds the finished candies would be easy to unmold.

Next the original art went onto the vacu-former and we pulled four molds by heating plastic from gallon water jugs until they were nearly transparent and then placing them over the vacu-former and Maddie turned on the vacuum. It takes less than a second to suck the air out, cool and harden the mold.

I melted some white (pink and red) chocolate Witman's candy melts and let Maddie fill the molds.

The first batch and the rest! Now we just need to wrap them in foil.

A red heart still in the mold.

She was so excited to make something from scratch that she can share with her friends. I was very happy to see the excitement and energy in her eyes. So of course, Mason had to get in on the action too. :-)