Foam Printing

I've always been fascinated by block printing. So, I was really inspired when I saw this idea (from Pinterest, of course) for foam printing. Jellybean and I decided to experiment with this new medium.  Buddy did not participate as he has little to no interest in paint. It's a tad too messy for his taste.

We went to town on a stack of foam plates from the dollar store.  I used water based acrylic paint and Jellybean used finger paints.  We found that neither were thick/tacky enough for a perfect result, but they worked in a pinch. A printmaking ink like one from Speedball would work better. We both used a sharpened pencil to draw with. After a little experimentation, I found it a little easier to work with a letter opener that I had on hand.

I'm finding that Jellybean has a real artistic flare.  She felt that her print needed...something more...

Now that's a piece of art worthy of the refrigerator! Beautiful!

Our experiment was a really good jumping off point. I plan to explore this art form a little more once I have my hands on a higher quality ink.  I'll have to see where that goes.  

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Pretzel Break

I have been struggling with a terrible head cold for the last few days.  It was a gift from my beautiful children.  Don't you love the way illness works its way through the family?  All in all this darn cold has been working us over for the last two weeks.
On Saturday, despite being under the weather, I had a sudden hankering for soft pretzels.  I'm pretty sure that this was my train of thought: I started thinking about how much I wanted to be out of the house (we've been cooped up for a while). Then I thought how nice it would be to go to the mall. From there I imagined purchasing some lovely soft pretzel bites from the Pretzel Maker in the mall....mmmm.
Off to Pinterest I went for a pretzel recipe. I found one that I thought was worth trying. I found the recipe via Just Another Day in Paradise and it looks like the original recipe was found on In Katrina's Kitchen. Both are great websites. Here's the recipe:

Soft Pretzels and Pretzel Bites

Ingredients
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (1 pkg)
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
4 cups flour

2 cups water
2 Tablespoons baking soda
3 Tablespoons butter, melted
coarse Kosher salt

In the bowl of a mixer, fitted with dough hook, dissolve yeast, brown sugar and salt in the warm water. Mix in flour until the dough has come together enough to turn out onto a floured surface. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes. (If you don't have a mixer, you can do all this by hand with a sturdy spoon and then kneading an extra 2-3 minutes) Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover it, and let it rise for 1 hour.

After the dough has risen, cut it into 16 pieces. Let the dough rest for five minutes. Roll each piece into a 1 1/2 foot rope. Twist ropes into small pretzel shapes OR for bites: Cut each rope into small pieces. Don't cut them too small. I found that larger was a little better. 

In a large saucepan, bring the 2 cups of water and the baking soda to a simmer over med heat. In batches, place pretzel pieces in the water. For larger pretzels, I did two at a time. Let them cook in the water for about 20 seconds. Take out and lay them on a greased cooking sheet. Repeat until all the pieces are done. Let them rise for another 15 minutes.

Brush them with melted butter and sprinkle them with salt. Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown. Make sure not to over cook them. I liked them best when they were on the lighter side of golden brown.

My children gobbled the pretzel bites right up. They kept coming back for more. If they hadn't just gotten back from getting bagels, they probably would have eaten half the batch. It was fun trying my hand at something new.  We'll have to make them again in the future.


Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Color Sort- Let's Learn Colors

Jellybean has been having a little trouble with her colors. So, I decided to put together a simple game to help her. I pulled out some sheets of dollar store craft foam in red, yellow, blue, green and orange. Then I pulled out our tupperware of puff balls and asked the kids to sort the colors.

Yes, we were still in our pajamas. Why do you ask?

After the puff balls had been sorted, I asked the kids to run through the house and find two or three toys that matched each color.

They did an awesome job

and were pretty proud of themselves.

At the end of the activity, I asked Jellybean to name the different colors.  She now has Orange, Red and Yellow down pat (at least for now). We're still working on Green and Blue.  3 out of 5? That's a good morning's work in my book. When we were finished, Jellybean surprised me by breaking into a rendition of the Rainbow Song. "Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue. I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too."  This was also a good opportunity for Buddy to exercise his teaching skills. He loved helping Jellybean learn her colors. He's a good big brother.

Before we could clean everything up, the game devolved into "Dump the Puff Balls on Jellybean." It was a natural conclusion.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

WW- A Birthday at the Dinosaur Museum

A little rewind/cell phone dump from last month: A peek at Buddy's birthday visit to the Natural History Museum.

Walking in.

Fun was had by all. Especially the birthday boy.

Join in the Wordless Wednesday fun and Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Scrap Paper Dolls

I love paper dolls, but the little tabs on their clothes? Not so much.  So, when I saw this idea from Giddy Giddy and then I saw these free Betsy McCall Paper Doll printables, I knew I had the materials to make paper doll magic. I'm calling these Scrap Paper Dolls.  All the classic charm of the classic paper doll, no little tabs, endless possibilities. 

I chose a few of the Betsy McCall forms, enlarged them and then printed them out in color. From there I sketched out the area that I wanted to cut out.

Then I took my trusty Martha Stewart crafts knife and went to work cutting. After the cutting was complete, I went to town cutting out all kinds of different patterns from any catalogues and magazines I had lying around. I tried laying the scraps out nicely and then, with the help of my kids, I discovered that scattering them at random led to even more interesting results.  Here are some of the combos we came up with:

All I can say is: Those are some stylin' kids.

I've become obsessed with clipping different patterns and textures from all of the catalogues we receive in the mail. I loved The Land of Nod catalogue. As you can see, the combinations are infinite. The price tag on this is also awesome: The cost of the card stock and color printing (if you don't have your own color printer) and that's it.

We're all sick over here, so smiles were difficult to come by.

Ditch all of your paper doll tabbed clothing and try out some Scrap Paper Dolls. Big thanks to Giddy Giddy and Betsy McCall for giving me some inspiration!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Animal Mix-up Puzzle

I got this fun and easy idea from one of my new favorite blogs, I Can Teach My Child. She has so many great activity ideas for small children, I decided I needed to try her Animal Mix-Up Legos.

This was designed for the Duplo Lego blocks, but would probably work for any pre-school construction blocks in this size with a little adjustment.  I went on an image search and found the animal pictures, but you can also go here for the photos she used and her sizing directions.

Print photos, cut out, tape to blocks. Easy Peasy.

After assembly, just scatter the blocks on the floor and let the fun commence.

Jellybean is two. It took a little bit for her to figure this out. Once she did, she loved finding the correct pieces and putting them together. I'm thinking I may print a few more photos and cut them in quarters for the smaller square blocks. That should make it just a little trickier for my four year old.

Such a simple idea and so much fun. Jellybean has been carrying her puzzle around with her and even taking it to bed at night. She's kind of attached.

I also have some good news! I'll be guest posting this morning about my Read With Me Book Bags over at The Practically Perfect Princess. Go check it out! 

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Random. Awesome. Friday.

I don't usually post on Friday.  This is my Pinterest/catch up on blogs day. I'm breaking from the usual routine because I have a few totally random tips that I wanted to share:

1. Bake Don't Boil Eggs:

I found this awesome idea on Pinterest, but it's really all thanks to Alton Brown from America's Test Kitchen.  Turns out that it is 20 times easier (at least for me) to hard cook an egg in the oven instead of boiling it on the stove.  Plus, less sulfur smell and the eggs come out perfectly every time.  I've been baking eggs weekly since I got this tip. 325 degree oven, 30 mins. Place in ice bath immediately for about 10 minutes. Peel eggs, put back in ice bath to completely cool. Keep in a sealed container in the fridge. I'm now able to enjoy deviled eggs any time I want. :)

2. Dryer Sheets on Water Stains:

My awesome sister in law gave me this great tip.  I was having trouble cleaning the glass surrounds on my shower.  I tried a ton of different options, this one took the cake. Turns out that a slightly damp dryer sheet is excellent for removing water stains on the glass.  Rub the glass well with the dryer sheet and then finish up with a slightly damp microfiber cloth and you'll have lovely clean glass that you can actually see through.

3. Engage, Embrace, Enjoy:

Nice little tip brought to you from the lovely people at Dove chocolate.  I eat an embarrassing amount of chocolate. So much actually that I've mostly stopped reading the little sayings inside of each wrapper.  Well, I read one today and found it particularly applicable to my current state of mind regarding my children.  I'm sure it had more to do with life in general, but I decided, as a mother, that this would be an excellent daily mantra.  I need to engage my children more, embrace them more and just simply enjoy them more. Words to live by and a tasty piece of chocolate to boot. Not bad.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Read With Me Book Bags

We love to frequent the library and the kids are getting to the point where they are borrowing quite a number of books each time we visit. This is unfortunate for me because I end up carrying all of them. So, I had a thought...
"Ding!" (that was the sound of a light bulb going off in my head)
What if I just get them some book bags that they can carry by themselves?  Maybe it wasn't the most creative of thoughts, but it was good enough for me.

I purchased some sturdy canvas bags from Hobby Lobby and some fabric paints.  I like the little Scribbles fabric paints. There's something about that magical 99 cent price tag.  I didn't want to dish out the money for letter stamps, so I decided to create my own.  I purchased a package of craft foam (in sheets) from the dollar store and layered it to give the stamps some depth. Then I glued on a layered foam square on each letter to use as a handle.  They actually worked pretty well, especially for what they cost me. Just a tip, if you are stamping onto fabric, those foam sheets are great to have as a backing under the fabric to prevent bleed through. 

The kids loved their new book bags. Jellybean calls her's her "baggy." As luck would have it, we had a few books on hold at the library, so we took the opportunity for a quick trip to try out the new bags.

I snapped these photos in the library. I tried to be sneaky about it, but there was no getting around the awkward stares from other parents. Maybe they didn't even mind, but I felt like I had to be extra clear that I was only taking photos of my own children.

The bags were awesome. Not only was it nice to be able to separate out Buddy's books from Jellybean's, but they are now a nice location to make sure that the library books stay together in one place, instead of being strewn throughout rooms and throughout the entire house. Am I the only one that has a problem with that?

Just added this photo because she is so cute. That is all.

Have a Happy Day!


~MJ


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