Salt Dough Orniments

One Christmas, we decided to make cookie ornaments from

a recipe I found from one of my mom's old recipe books.

Here's the basic recipe:

4 parts flour

1 part salt

1 part warm water

Straw

Rolling pin

Cookie cutters

1. Preheat oven to 300.

2. Mix salt & flour

3. Stir in water.  Add more 1 tbsp at a time if dough is too thick.  Stir until smooth.

4. Knead several times to get out the air and lumps

5. Roll out abut 1/8 - 1/4" thick.

6. Cut out cookies.  Using a straw, poke a hole in the ornament for the ribbon.

7. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 60 - 90 minutes.  Ornaments should be dry and hard, but not brown.  If they start to brown, turn temp down to 250 and cover with aluminum foil.

8. When cool, finish off with paint, sealing glaze, glitter, and all the bedazzle you want.

Rolling out the dough for Christmas cookie ornaments

Some of his cut-outs, done all by himself.
A tennis racket, very festive!

Laying them down gently

Baking the ornaments

They were a little brittle and puffed up more than I hoped, but we painted them with tempera paints and they were spectacular (in the eyes of a toddler). 

Pirate Party Free Printables

I've been asked about my Pirate Party images and want to share the fun!  I only ask that you use them only for your personal uses and if you get the chance - send me yer pictures!

Here are the PDF's for the stuff below and more!!

Food Sign 1: Goldfish, Cannon Balls, Sharks & Pirate Booty

Food Sign 2: Whale Meat, Rat Stew, Planks, Parrot Beaks

Blank Signs for you to fill out with your own creative pirate words

Find Yer Treasure! Card

And some general papers - pirate stripes and pirate stripes with black borders.

Customized signs are available - free!, Leave a message and let me know what you need!

Easy Angry Birds Card

I needed to make a birthday card, had some scrap paper and a little inspiration- and here it is!

I don't have a template because it was all done on the fly, but here are the steps I took - anyone can make this -
Angry Birds are super easy shapes!

To make Red, you need:
red, black, yellow and white paper
scissors
a pencil
a black Sharpie.
a glue stick

With my pencil, I made a circle on the red paper,  I added two bumps on top for the feathers.
I cut out the red shape and outlined it with black Sharpie

To make the white tummy, I cut out an arc, glued it to the red body, then trimmed it to match the circle.  Again, this was all outlined with black Sharpie.

The mouth is made of 2 simple triangles.  the bottom one is slightly smaller than the top, but they both meet up on one corner (see pic).

The eyes are white circles with black Sharpie dots for pupils.

The eyebrows are a v-shape.  I added a little curve to one end.

Glue together and viola!  Red!

The background is simple blue and green paper with a white cloud.  All free-handed and outlined in black.

It took me about 30 minutes to get the pieces cut and set.  With a template, it would be even faster!

Junkins

For Halloween, I borrowed the idea of making a junk pumpkin rather than carving it.  Disney Family Magazine... you are my inspiration!  Worth every penny.  

I raided Grandad's garage the week prior and our garage the Night of the Creating.  It was SUPER fun!  My kids loved pounding stuff into the pumpkins WAY more than carving and scooping out the guts.  No one got hurt and I wasn't worried someone would saw off a finger by mistake.

My youngest entered his in his school's Fall Ball Pumpkin Contest and won for his grade!!    His pumpkin was an alien/scared person pumpkin.

My oldest decided his needed a mustache and by the time he was done, we referred to him as the Mr. Pringles Pumpkin.


This is something we will definitely do again next year!

The (Not-So) Multi-Purpose Gift

Last year, As I was getting ready for work the morning of my birthday, Itchy bounces into the bedroom with a plastic grocery bag and something bobbling around in it.

"Hey mom!" (All conversations start this way)  "Here you go!"

"What is THIS?"  I might have been playing it up a little too much.  but hey, that's my job.

"Your birthday present.  I made it myself just for you!" 
Homemade presents tend to be double-edged swords. they're either beautiful, thoughtful and something I will keep forever.  Or ... something more like this.

I open my gift bag and see:  an empty oatmeal can covered in loads of bright, colorful sticky foam flowers, a cereal box? glued to the bottom, twine looped though it for a kind-of handle and a cat toy (at least it looks like a cat toy) inside.

"WOW!  I love it!  You worked really hard on this!"  I totally deserve an Academy Award for this.

"Thanks mom!  The nail scratched it a little here and that part was hard" Visions of my 7 year-old using a hammer and nail on an oatmeal can flashing through my mind.  Ohno Ohno Ohno.  Breathe... "Happy birthday mom!"

"Umm... can you explain it to me?  What is it?"

Absolutely straight faced - "I don't know."  pause ...  he looks at the gift thoughtfully - like this was the first time he had ever seen it.  "You can hang it, but the handles are too short.  Or you can put stuff into it, I guess.  I really don't know what it's for."

"You put a lot of thought into this."  At least he thought about making me something.  He is so happy to make me happy.

Proudly - "Yup" Damn, my kid is cute.  Moments like this make parenting worth it.

"It's perfect!  I love it! Thanks!" Red carpet, here I come.

He bounces out of the room all smiles and full of happiness because he made me happy.

I quickly send a pic to my BFF to share this parenting moment.  The text conversation went like this:

BFF: What is it?

Me: No clue.  There is an (old) cat toy inside.  It means a lot to him and he put love into it and that's what matters to me.

BFF: Absolutely.  I guess my brain goes, "he gave it to me, so I should use it.  Wait, how do I use it?"

Me: default answer = decoration

BFF: that makes sense

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I have a lovely decorative container, hangy-thingy made with love and care by my darling 7 year old boy.

It's a step up from Mother's Day 2010 - I received an abstract sculpture snowman/snowball/log that was carefully? crafted out of white clay and fired with a tan glaze.  The result - a ceramic sculpture that looks like poop.  Literally.  White(ish) ceramic poop.

T-Rex vs. The Wiggles

One night  I was cleaning up the play room and as I was putting something in the toy box, I looked up and saw the T-Rex apparently hunting the Wiggles.

They even look scared.  Except for Greg.  You know he's still singing away.  Murray is clearly in awe and probably grabbing on to Greg.  Jeff is about to pass out either from exhaustion or the weight of his accordion.  It looks like Anthony is the only real hero.  Arm cocked back, he is ready to launch the nearest object (look out Jeff!) at the T-Rex and save the day.

I didn't get involved.  I let nature take it's course.

Pirate Party (3 of 3)

I found some more pictures for you Pirate-loving party planners!

At our kids Pirate Party, we had a coloring activity to occupy the little pirates.  I found these at Joanne Fabrics in their $1 section.  I had them on one of the tables with a bucket of markers for the kids to color.  Unfortunately, the kids were preoccupied with dart guns and cupcakes, so these were never done.  Now I'm saving them for a rainy day project.

The contents of the loot bags - balloons, a map/activity sheet, eye patches, rings, coins, money, tattoos, a whistle, a finger puppet and a mini telescope.  Most of this came from a party store kit, but I threw in some other goodies for good measure.

Here are the sashes I made.  They are just 42" red fabric torn on the boas and left ragged for a more authentic look.  It was long enough for all the kids - big and small.

For more pictures and ideas, see part 1 and part 2!

Pirate Party (2 of 3)

The loot bags by the door.  I found the bags at a local party store.

The Pirate Station.  This is where the kids first stopped when they arrived to get all "Pirate'd."  The bags were sewn by me with drawstring cording and were just big enough for some paper money and some gold coins.  Of course, they had eye patches and skull rings, too.  

The cupcake tower.  I don't think I will have another birthday cake - this was so much more fun!  I made 2 boxes of Fun da Middles - one vanilla and one chocolate.  I used dark chocolate frosting to give better contrast.  And of course, there were pirate flags on top.

The dining room table - pirate tablecloth, pirate decorations, a giant cookie and the cupcakes.

There were lots and lots of red, white and black balloons throughout the house!

For more ideas, see Pirate Party Part 1 here.

Pirate Party (1 of 3)

** Download the free pirate printables I created & used here***

For the kids birthday party in April, we decided on a Pirate theme.  

Cuz everybody loves pirates.

 The week before the party, one of the kids got a GIANT pirate play set.  It wasn't a coincidence.

The pics don't show everything.  I had to run and pick up balloons and 

Hubby was supposed to take more pics but got distracted.

 When every kid came in, they were given a checklist to find all their pirate loot.  Then I helped them into their sashes, eye patches and attached their treasure pouches.

The sashes were red cotton fabric torn into strips and left rough.

I sewed the pirate pouches out of a Jolly Roger patterned material.

The loot bags were found at my local party store and had coins, big plastic jewelry, another eye patch and other pirate-themed goodies.

 I made fun labels for the snacks.

The main dish was Chili (Rat Stew) and hot dogs (Dog Tails).  

Rather than have a cake, I made cupcakes - FunDaMiddles.  I got a cupcake tree and used black (dark chocolate) and white frosting with little pirate flags.

 Rolo candies

 Hershey Kisses

 Goldfish

 The snacks table

 Cheese puff balls

 We also had a treasure hunt.  Rather than use a map, the kids had to go clue to clue to find the final destination - the Treasure!  It was in the sandbox marked with a gigantic "X."

I buried plastic gold coins and a big bag of plastic jewels and rings.

2 dozen red, white and black balloons rounded out the decor.

All in all, I think the kids had a really good time!

For more ideas, see Pirate Party Part 2 here.