Tuxedo Strawberries

My all time favorite dessert is chocolate dipped strawberries.  While at college I indulged myself in an elective that had nothing to do with my major: Confectionary.  It was one of the most enjoyable classes I have ever taken.

We were taught how to decorate strawberries to look like little tuxedos.  Not only do these look adorable, but it is just the perfect ratio of white chocolate to dark for me.  Delicious!

I made some for Teacher Appreciation Week at my son's school today and apparently they were a big hit.  Someone called to see if I did them professionally so she could order some. :)

But despite their fancy appearance, they're fairly easy to do, as long as you temper the chocolate correctly.  If you overheat it, the wax will separate from the chocolate (giving it a white coating) after it hardens.  I stick my chocolate buttons in pyrex bowls in the oven at 200 degrees.  After about 5 minutes, turn the oven off and stir chocolate frequently to make sure outer edges aren't getting cooked.  When it is nice and creamy it's ready to dip.

To do tuxedo strawberries, dip clean, dry strawberries in white chocolate, just on the front side, no need to roll the whole berry in it.  If the room is cool enough, they will harden quickly on wax paper and you can move right into the next step.  Once the white chocolate is hardened, dip it in dark chocolate at a slant, then roll it around to slant on the other side.  Let them harden once more and reheat the dark chocolate if needed.  Put some dark chocolate in a ziplock baggie and snip a very small corner off of one side.  This needs to be very small to enable drawing with chocolate.  Draw a little bow-tie and buttons on and you're done.  Enjoy within 12 hours, they do not have a long shelf life.

Holiday Food

Maybe it's the winter drudgery or disappearance of all of the holiday goodies around February and March that makes me want to be creative in the kitchen, but for whatever reason, starting with Valentine's Day, I start looking for some fun food traditions to help us make it through the remaining wintery days and start spring off right.

March brings the green food traditions of St. Patrick's Day, obviously, but we also enjoy making pies for Pi Day (3/14)  

I thought I'd try letting the kids each do their own chicken pot pie this year to see if they'd eat them better.  Last year we had quiche which they ate alright, but didn't love.

We also made an apple pie for dessert.

And then there's the endless possibilities of April Fools' Day.  The last couple of years we have made some fun April Fools' Day dinners with mashed potato covered meatballs that looked like cupcakes and jello in cups with straws to look like juice.  I even made a raspberry and noodle-like frosting covered chocolate cake that looked like spaghetti a couple years ago. 

We also fooled Daddy with a pan of Brown-E's last year.

But this year I was looking for a new idea and came across rice crispy sushi.  This is perfect for my husband, who loves sushi and would never believe that I would make it for him, since I can't stand seafood of any kind.

Obviously it would have been better if I could have found green fruit roll-ups and stuffed the centers with the fish instead of just setting them on top, but this way was easier and more fun to involve my kids in the making without too big of a mess.  The Fruit-by-the-foot was super easy because it is already the right width for my mini-muffin tin sized rice crispy treats.

For the Birds

My son saw a bird feeder in the store a few months ago and wanted to buy it.  My husband took the opportunity to plan a father/son bonding craft out of it.  Our son drew what he wanted the bird feeder to look like, then they drafted it together in a computer program called SketchUp.

Next they got to work building it.  The kids all had fun painting it and having small parts to play in the construction.  We mostly have been feeding finches since we hung it in the tree, but the kids love watching the birds use it.

In the month or so that it has been hanging the birds have eaten 2/3 of the seeds.

Knit Together with Love

I haven't had much time to be creative lately, but in February I made scarves for my girls.  They use all kinds of imaginative play with them besides their practical use of keeping their necks warm.  There was also one night that one of my girls woke up in the night and when I went to comfort her found her snuggling her scarf along with the doll I made.  It warmed my heart that she found comfort in the things that she knows I took time to create just for her.  Sometimes it is just the thought that counts.

I just did a basic knit stitch on these, nothing fancy at all, 30 stitches wide.

God's Creations

I am responsible for teaching a lesson to the children at my church in a couple weeks on how God created our bodies and how we need to take care of them and use them for good.  The lesson can be found here, under the 2014 download.

The lesson is based off of the scripture Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

I like the idea of showing the kids a mirror and letting them see their own image first, discussing what a gift our bodies are from our Heavenly Father, followed by a game.  However, the paper cube game idea doesn't sound like it would be very sturdy for our rambunctious crowd.

I plan on playing Hot Potato with a couple Mister Potato Heads.  I'll put the body parts inside and have them pass it around.  When the music stops they get to pull one piece out and answer the question, "How does Heavenly Father want you to use or take care of this part of your body?"

We recently had a discussion about how God wants us to use our hands to help others, so I think they'll build off of that concept and we can also talk about how important it is to get exercise and eat healthy foods so we keep our bodies healthy and able to be good helpers for Heavenly Father.

For the mouth we can talk about the importance of speaking kind words and not gossiping.  Eyes and ears can springboard a discussion about the importance of not listening to music with a bad message or watching inappropriate media.

There is also a cute little poem I think I'll end with found on another Primary blog linked from the 1988 Friend Magazine:

THE MASTER ARTIST
by Frances Carfi Matranga

Catch a crystal snowflake
And study its design;

When it’s magnified, you’ll see
Each lovely, lacy line.

You’ll find that snowflakes differ;
No two are just the same,

They’re created by the Master
To glorify His name.

And thus it is with people;
God made each one unique.

He’ll guide us in our daily lives
If for His help we seek.

You’ll find that He will guide you,
Tell you what you need to know—

He wants the very best for you
Because He loves you so.

Soap Foam

I love using foaming soap dispensers for kids.  They are so much easier for them to wash off than goopy gel soap.  But I find it very difficult to purchase refills for said foam dispensers.  Then it hit me as I was trying to coax the last of the soap out of one dispenser that I probably could water down the gel stuff and use it which would save me even more on the cost of soap.

So I asked my husband, who invents cleaners for a living, if that would work.  He explained the difference between the soaps to me in terms I barely understood, but the gist of it is, yes, you can water down the thick stuff and it should work just fine in the foam dispensers.

So I tried it using about half soap, half water and it foamed right up.  Fantastic!

*  *  *

Along those same lines... Did you know you could microwave a bar of soap and watch it grow into a puffy cloud of disinfectant?  It's kind of a fun science experiment for kids to see what happens to the soap when cooked.  And it feels cool after it's been puffed up.

Here are a couple picture of my kids trying it out if you'd like to know how much it grows:

My Family Tree

I fell in love with some family tree murals on Pinterest (such as here and here) and determined I would personalize one for my own home.

I painted the tree on our staircase wall.  If you're not an artist, don't be afraid of tackling this project.  Branches are very forgiving, they don't have to be in any particular place.

Next I borrowed my sister's Cricut machine to design the leaves.  I inserted the names of the kids' Grandparents, cousins and aunts/uncles as well as our own immediate family then just added blank leaves to fill up the rest of the space.  The most time consuming part was by far the placing of the named leaves because you have to be so careful with all the little colored dots for the middle of letters.

I used cheap, simple frames (found at Walmart), because I wanted the pictures to be framed in by the artwork, not covering it up too much.

I found lots of lovely quotes that would have been fitting to add to my mural, but finally decided on this one:

Here is the final product:

I love that my kids know who their great grandparents are, even though they rarely see them, because we have their pictures hanging in our hallway.

And in case anyone is interested in the process of painting the tree:  I used all one color for the base, then added some texture/bark looking wavey lines in a darker brown while the tan color was still wet so that they would blend in well.

Here is the tree minus the leaves and most of the photographs.

I Spy With My Little Eye...

I found these little soda bottles that were the perfect size to fill for little look and find toys for my kids.

I gathered all different kinds of beads, including some in animal shapes and anything else small I could find.  I typed up a list of what was going to be in each one in case the kids wanted to cross things off the list as they found them, then I dumped everything inside and filled it with rice*.  I glued the caps on with a hot glue gun so I wouldn't find a rice disaster all over my house later.

In case anyone is interested in what types of things I collected for these I Spy bottles, here's a sample of my list:

green star

small, med. & large leaves

green button

6 different colored turtle beads

ABC

XYZ

Numbers 1-9

penny, nickel, dime

green teddy bear bead

purple lion bead

small green doughnut

florescent yellow flower, k, y

pink heart, crescent, star, triangle

green diamond

“fun”

orange fuzzy

orange, purple beads

small, green ribbon

white flower

straw

lady bug

2 small screws (gold, red)

safety pin

butterfly and fish stickers

pink, purple balloons

*Hint: I knew that rice absorbs water and I wondered if that would cause any problems after the bottle was sealed.  It has created kind of a vacuum, indenting the sides in places, so I would use something different if I were to do this craft over again.  

Keeping Kids Quiet

There are all kinds of quiet book tutorials out there, but I think the key is to make it personal and economical by using what you have on hand and what your unique children are interested in.

My favorite page in our quiet book is the family tree page.  It's important to me that my kids have lots of pictures of their grandparents since we do not live close to them.  So I cut a tree out of felt, sewed some sparkly leaves onto it and then sewed on some sticky velcro dots where I wanted my pictures to go.

Next I cut out the faces of my kids, my husband and me as well as the grandparents in the shape of apples and laminated them in sets.

We have been using this quiet book for about 3 years, and I just now thought to share this, so it's well used (read: bent up and beat up), but you get the idea.

My quiet book has fabric pages with an activity on each side and a ribbon tab on each page for turning pages and for babies to play with.  Maybe not as practical as the removable pages idea on 3 rings, but softer.

Here are some other pages:

Telling time and Noah's ark.  Tucked inside the boat are animal beads on a string (in pairs of course).  The fish also slide back and forth in the water on the ribbons.

This one is missing the crocheted flower petals (similar to this link) that go over the buttons.  It was a fun idea, but they eventually got lost.  The treasure box on the right can hide snacks or anything you want.  The kids love unlocking the lock, which is just an old luggage lock with the key sewn onto a string so we won't lose it.

I love the weaving idea, but I wanted mine to look like a cherry pie.  It's maybe a little too complex for toddlers.  I'd do fewer strips if I were to redo this page.  The left page I was just using left-over alphabet charms that I had an abundance of to help them learn their letters and how to spell their names.

Another idea for Quiet books is to put a small photo album in your diaper bag with pictures of family and friends.  Kids love looking at pictures of themselves and people they know, so it's an easy thing to carry around without having to relinquish your phone for kids to look at pictures with when you need them to sit still.

I have also taken advantage of free photo book offers from various websites and uploaded pictures I thought my kids would enjoy to use as a quiet book.  You still have to pay shipping on the free books, but for a while there were some really cheap options for paperback 20 page books.  Inexpensive to ship and not heavy to weigh down a diaper bag.  They're also not very durable, but they definitely serve their purpose well.

Another great solution for church is to laminate pictures of Jesus and put them together on a ring so they don't get lost.

Personally, I feel that it is important for kids to learn how to sit still without an electronic device to entertain them.  While there is definitely a time and a purpose for apps and computer games, I feel like some important things, like patience and imagination for example, are learned when such toys are not constantly available to children.

The One Thing Not Found On The Internet

A thought has been nagging at me for a couple of months.  I searched the internet to find a tutorial or some kind of tips on how to make dolls for my girls using my own hair.  There was nothing to be found.  After a comment from my brother-in-law saying, "You may have just found the one thing that is not on the internet!" I thought, well someone needs to put it on the internet.

Most of my crafts have been done elsewhere.  I get a lot of my ideas from Pinterest, but I usually put my own twist to them.  So I thought I'd create a place where I could share my successes and failures for others who are searching for tips on their own creative projects without having to make my private journal entries on my family blog public to the world.

So without further ado, here is a tutorial on how I ended up making real hair dolls for my girls for Christmas.

I started out with about 11 inches of hair braided in two sections, then cut.  For those of you who might think this is a waste not to donate it to Locks of Love, which I might add, is a wonderful cause to support:  I couldn't donate it there because I had highlighted it, which is too damaging to the hair to make a wig.  So the next best thing was to reuse it in my own family.

One of my 3 year olds begs me every night to lay down by her until she falls asleep so that she can play with my hair.  It's been her comforter her whole life, which makes for some nice cuddle time, but also ties me up many evenings when I have other things to do.

My solution was to sew the hair onto a doll's head so she could snuggle with the doll every night and have the same comfort of my real hair.

As I mentioned, I couldn't find any examples to go off of, except the description of a friend whose daughter had a similar doll.

So I created my own doll pattern, tracing a round head, then folding the paper in half to make sure the arms and legs would be symmetrical.

I wanted a fabric that was easy to clean so that the dolls wouldn't look dingy.  However my first attempts using a smooth polyester fabric ended with me melting the fabric trying to attach some interfacing behind the face.

I lack the equipment to do an embroidered face, as I was envisioning, so I bagged that idea and bought some fabric markers to draw the face on.  I tried the markers out on a corner of two different types of fabric before I pre-washed them to see if they really would be color-fast.  The markers faded and blurred on the flannel I tried, so I went ahead with a thicker polyester because the marker was so vivid after the washing.

I also debated long and hard about what glue to buy for the hair.  I finally decided on a fabric glue that was both washable and flexible.  I had no idea there were so many options when I checked out my local fabric store.

I cut a long strip of fabric for each doll and glued the hair onto it, folding the fabric over it so it was holding it in place like a barrette.  I let it dry overnight then sewed overtop of the hair back and forth several times with a small zigzag stitch.

Next I carefully pinned the fabric strip to the face side of the doll fabric so that the hair was hanging down towards the feet.  I sewed close to the edge of the fabric, then a second row along the hair so that the stiff fabric didn't poke out along the top of the head.  And finally I just sewed up along the arms and legs of the doll, leaving a hole along the side of the stomach for stuffing it.

I used some shredded memory foam that I had on hand for the stuffing, so they are nice and soft.

My fabric strips were a little too long for the size of head that I chose.  I should have made the dolls a little bigger so that the hair fit nicer along the top, but overall they were a big hit.

For the clothes I just grabbed some scraps and cut them out at a half inch larger than my original pattern and sewed them up.  I stitched the shoulders together first, then hemmed the neckline and sleeves before stitching the two sides together and finally finishing the bottom hemline.

They were a huge hit Christmas morning and have been much loved ever since.

An alternative look to the gingerbread man pattern would be to sew arms and legs individually and then sew them onto the body in more of a Lalaloopsy doll look.