Week 4- Part 2 - Cloud Dough

I used to be a preschool teacher before my kids were born, and I LOVED doing sensory tables in my classrooms.  We played with rice, water, sand, decaf coffee, and oatmeal, to name a few.  Since becoming a mom and and doing things in my own house, knowing I am solely responsible for cleaning it up afterwards, I resorted to cleaner things, like playdough for some sensory fun.  I came across this cloud dough on pinterest, and it peaked my inner preschool teacher interest.  I had my doubts b/c I had been sorely let down by moon dough.  The kids really didn't think it was that great, and I was not happy to be scrubbing tiny pieces of sand between the leaves on my kitchen table for weeks afterwards. That aside, I decided to go for it, and I am so glad that I did! 

This pin originated from the blog Juggling with Kids (http://www.jugglingwithkids.com/2011/11/cloud-dough.html).  The recipe is very simple.  You just mix 8 cups of flour with 1 cup of baby oil, and TADA!  You have cloud dough.  We pulled one of the containers off our shelf in the playroom to mix it in.  I would say plastic containers are the best for easy cleanup.  I am just going to stick ours in the dishwasher to clean it up. 

The kids helped mix the cloud dough together.  It was pretty easy.  You just need to really sift through and make sure there is no oil lurking in the corners.  It held up to its promise of being soft but very moldable.  We used cookie cutters, measuring cups, spoons, and small paper cups to play in the dough.  The kids made dough castles, dough cookies, and just dug around and played for almost an hour, when we had to stop them to get ready for dinner.  It was a success!!

The clean- up wasn't too bad.  The kids had to take showers afterwards anyways, so their clean-up was pretty easy too! :)  The only thing I might change for next time, is splitting the recipe in half and putting it into two containers, so they can each have their own, since there was a little squabbling at times over not being able to reach the dough.  Then again, this is a good exercise in sharing too!  One other change I would make is not having my daughter wear a long sleeved black shirt.  She was covered!! :)

Overall a great craft idea for the kids, and I think it might be good stress relief for adults too.  It was somewhat relaxing to mold the dough then crumble it then mold it again.  Ha!  We will definitely do this again.

Week 4 - Part 1 - Fudge Peanut Butter Cookies

This is kind of a bonus post b/c I found this recipe just searching for something to do with the left over cocoa I didn't use in the teacher gifts at Christmas.  My daughter wanted to do some cooking this morning, so we found these cookies on a blog I found looking up recipes for cocoa powder. 

http://madeitallfromscratch.blogspot.com/2009/05/chocolate-fudge-cookies.html

You can find the recipe by clicking on the link above.

I have been doing more cooking from scratch myself here lately, and it really not that much harder than using a mix, and I think it tastes much better!  Plus, while I don't use all organic ingredients, I do feel  little better knowing that organic flour and butter are going into it. 

My daughter insisted that we wear our Christmas aprons since we would be baking.  I think I need to get some anytime aprons, although she looks really cute in her gingerbread man apron. :)  We started to work measuring, pouring and mixing.  I did most of the measuring, and my daughter enjoyed dumping the ingredients into the bowl and mixing them together.  She has gotten pretty good with the pastry blender.  I hardly to to help her with it anymore.  She also "helped" me hold the mixer when we put together the dry and wet ingredients.  We ended up adding peanut butter chips to it instead of chocolate.  We did this for my husband b/c he is a big Reese's fan.

After getting it all mixed together, I used my melon baller to scoop the cookies out.  I love doing this b/c it makes the perfect size cookie, and it scrapes itself.  Easy!!!

After about 13 minutes in the oven and 5 minutes to cool, we tasted our final product (pictured at the top).  Delicious!!  We both enjoyed just one, but I have a feeling a few more may be eaten by the end of the day.  Super easy, and a great one for the kids to help with.  I ended pinning the blog above the pinterest myself.

I will be doing another post this week about one of my pins on pinterest. :)

T-shirt Scarf



This is a project that I continued from the t-shirt dress.  I saw all the cute DIY t-shirt scarf on pinterest, and they looked so easy!!  This project took no time and was a breeze.  I used the remnant of the shirt that I used for the t-shirt dress for my daughter, so that was nice to be able to use the entire shirt instead of throwing it away.  I took the bottom half and cut straight across to make small circular strips of fabric.  I then pulled the strips gently to make them curl in at the edges almostlooking like little tubes of fabric.  One word of warning, don't pull too hard or you can pull apart one of the seams.  I did this on one of the strips, but it was ok b/c I was able to use that for the last part of the project. :)

Group all the strips, except one, together to make the scarf.  I tried to line up the seams so that one group of them could be covered by the tie.  Take the left over strip and cut the seam to make one long strip (or in my case, just use the one that ripped earlier).  Take one end of the strip and tie a knot around the group of strips then wrap it around over and over until you get to the end of the strip.  At the end I just wove it through the wrapping a couple times to secure it.  And that's it!!  So easy!

I can't wait to try this with one of my shirts, so I can have one too!  On pinterest it said that this is the perfect option for good tees that have a small stain or just don't fit anymore.  I think I may have to make one from an old Baylor shirt. :)

T-shirt Ruffle Dress

Ok, so I was a little more ambitious this week on my project.  I saw this on pinterest and repinned it for later, only to realize that when I went back for the instructions, it was just a link to a dress to buy.  Upon finding this out, I was a little discouraged, but still determined to make something similar.  I used the directions from another style of t-shirt dress then just made the rest up myself!

I started off with this picture from pinterest as the original inspiration:

I then took my daughter to our local Hobby Lobby to pick out her choice color of ruffled fabric.  She picked out a bright pink (shocking, I know), and we went in search of a black t-shirt to put with it. I bought about 19 inches of fabric, but I could have about about 12-15 after I ended up chopping some off the length later.   I already knew that I had a black and white patterned ribbon to go with it at home.  After looking at a couple stores, I finally found a black short sleeved shirt at Walmart for $3.88.

When I got started I laid out the t-shirt on the table and measured three times the t-shirt width for the fabric width.  I figured this would give me a little room to pleat the skirt a little to give it more volume (my daughter has to have dresses that spin or it's just unacceptable by her standards).  then folded and pinned the fabric in half to ruffles out to make the first stitch of the seam.  One word of warning, make sure that the ruffles are laying the correct way before stitching, or you will sew them to lay in correctly.  I just ran the seam through my sewing machine using a straight stitch.

For some reason, my pictures are not showing up as the edited versions that I have saved to my computer.  Sorry for having to crane your neck from side to side to look at the pics!  Back to the dress...

Then I flipped the skirt inside out to make an  inside seam to make the seam more sturdy, as well as, cover up the excess from the first seam.  I think this is called a french seam, but I am now sure.  For those who know, feel free to call me out! ;)  I made another straight stitched about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in to be sure that I covered up all the extra.  Once finished, I flipped it right side out again to reveal a nice little seam! :)

I then cut off the bottom of the shirt leaving about 3-4 inches below the sleeves (Save what you cut off for project I will do later this month!).  This will get rid of excess fabric from shirt to make the sewing much easier.  I then lined up the seam of the skirt with the seam on the side of the shirt and pinned it.  I pulled the fabric out so it laid it half and took the end and pinned it to the other side seam of the shirt.  After this, I pulled the fabric up to find the middle of the fabric between to two sides of shirt and pinned it to the middle of the shirt.  I figured this was the easiest way to make sure the skirt fabric was evenly distributed around the shirt.  After those three pins, I made two pleats per side and pinned them.  I did the same to the back of the shirt, then sewed a straight stitch to secure the fabric. 

 

I added the ribbon to the shirt just sewing over the front half leaving the back half open to tie to the size needed for my daughter.  I learned the hard way from a past project to not sew a ribbon all the way around a shirt, if you want your child to be able to squeeze into the shirt.  T-shirts are made to stretch for a reason!

The finished project, while it doesn't quite look like the original, turned out pretty cute!!  My husband was surprised and impressed that I made it!  I can't wait to pair it with a cute pair of black leggings (the ruffled fabric is a little sheer) and see it on my daughter.  Unfortunately, she wasn't feeling too well and wasn't up for a photo shoot. :(

Overall, this ended up being way easier than I thought and took under from start to finish.  Much cheaper than buying one from the website!  One recommendation I would make is buy two sided ribbon.  My ribbon is one sided, so when I tie the bow, it doesn't show the decoration on one side.  Not horrible, but definitely a note for next time.  I am also thinking to cut the fabric shorter and make some ruffle shirts for summer. :)

Week 1 - Pizza Pinwheels

I found this quick and easy dinner on Pinterest.  We needed to do some cheap and easy meal planning for the week, and this recipe fit the bill.  I tried it out yesterday, and while the prep was a little harder than I thought, it was a hit with the entire family. 

http://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/pizza-rolls-recipe/1/
 
I let my 4 year daughter help with the cheese, pepperonis and Parmesan.  I recommend grating your own fresh mozzarella.  It melts better and tastes so good!  I wasn't exact with the amount of pepperoni or Parmesan, especially since my daughter was the one shaking out the Parmesan.  I am not sure if we got more on the pizza rolls or on the stove top!

I used the Pillsbury thin crust pizza dough instead of the Pillsbury classic pizza dough.  I don't like the rolls to be too doughy, so I thought the thin crust was a safe bet.    Rolling the dough was a little trickier than I thought.  It warmed quickly at room temperature and stretched quite a bit while I was trying to roll it.  After a couple tries, I was able to get it all rolled up and started to slice.  Slicing also posed a small issue, as the dough would pull off when I was slicing towards the middle of the roll.  I was able to reassemble each roll when I placed it on the baking sheet.

I made the mistake of placing the rolls upright instead of on it's side.  For some reason, I was afraid that if it was on it's side, the cheese would burn on the baking sheet.  Silly me!!  I didn't stop to think that the cheese would cook the same upright or on it's side..  I had one that accidentally flipped on it's side, and it turned out perfectly!  The others that I had placed upright, were very brown on top.  They still ate well though!

I served the rolls with some store bought marinara sauce warmed up in the microwave.  Everyone ate at least 2 rolls, and I have 3 picky eaters on my hands!  They have all requested that it be put in the meal rotation at least once a month.

End result - My rolls were definitely not as pretty as those pictured above, but they were still delicious! This is a great recipe that takes about 30 minutes start to finish, and I would definitely recommend it to those who need quick yummy meals during the week.

New Years Resolution - Try a new craft/recipe/tip each week

I am tired of my same of New Year's resolutions, so this year I decided to try something new.  Partly inspired by my new addiction to Pinterest and Craftgawker, I have decided to try a new recipe, DIY, or tip that I find each week.  I have been excited to try some of the new ideas I have found, and now that I am staying home and have a little more time (haha!), I decided to give some of these a go!  52 weeks-52 new experiences.  I am looking forward to gaining some new skills, but also anticipating some failures.  That's ok though because we learn through failures just as much as success, right?  Plus that proves my authenticity as a crafting/cooking novice with no special skills, thus proving it can be done by regular, everyday people as myself!  Please feel free to add comments to ask questions, offer suggestions, or post your experiences with the same idea. :)  We can all learn from each other as well! 

Enjoy and hope this blog inspires some other creative copycats as well!