Smores

May is halfway done which should mean that Spring is here even if it is not really warm yet. The snow is melting, the grass is getting green, tulips are poking through the dirt in my flowerbeds and the leaves are starting to come out on the trees.

I love all these signs of Spring and to lots of people Spring means that camping season has started or is starting soon. I do not camp. It is no fun for me to sleep on the ground in a tent - just not my thing. You want to take me camping in an RV, with a kitchen, a bathroom and a real bed, I am all over that, otherwise count me out.

One thing I do love is a campfire. We loved food cooked over a fire and toasted marshmallows .... YUM!!!! Smores are one of my favorite things to make over a fire.

 It is still too cold for me to enjoy sitting outside by the fire but I REALLY wanted some Smores, so we tried a little experiment with the oven. Much to our delight, they turned out!!!! Not as spectacular as the ones made with marshmallows straight from an outside campfire but still pretty darn good!

Ingredients:
Marshmallows (1 per Smore)
Chocolate covered digestive cookies (2 per Smore)

Directions:
Place a chocolate covered digestive cookie, chocolate side up on a baking sheet

Put one marshmallow on top of each cookie.

Place in the oven under the broiler until the marshmallows get bubbly (Approx 2-3 minutes)

Put the second cookie, chocolate side down, on top of the bubbly marshmallow.

Squeeze it down a little to squish the marshmallow and get the chocolate melty.

ENJOY!!!!!

Mother's Day Craft - Handprint Flower

Mother's day is coming up and my daughter wanted to make something special to give to her Grandma and her Great-Grandma. She wanted to let them know all the reasons she loved them.

Children's hand prints are so precious. They are like little snapshots of how big they were at that moment in time. The hand prints on this flower were very carefully traced and cut out by my 6 year old as she sang songs and chatted to me about how much her Grandmother's would LOVE the special surprise that she was making them.

Supplies:
Construction Paper
Markers
Picture you can cut around (Of the child or the child and the grandma)
Scissors
Glue

Directions:
Cut the picture out in a circle and made a little "frame" to go around it.We glued them together and left them to dry while we made the petals.

Make the petals.
My daughter traced as many hand petals as she needed to go around the outside of the framed picture and then glued them to the back of the picture. She spent a lot of time deciding which hand petal would go where and just how they would be placed.

Cut a stem and a little leaf or two out of green construction paper. Glue them to the bottom of the flower, just behind the hands.

Use the markers to write out all the reasons that your child loves whoever the flower is for. The stem says "I love my Great-Grandma because" (obviously change out the descriptor for whoever it is for) and the reasons they love them are written on all the petals.

Let the glue dry and then gift the flowers on Mother's Day!!!!

Banana Bread Mini Loaves

We used this recipe to make large loaves of banana bread for about a year before I received a new mini loaf pan for a gift. We pulled it out on one of our weekly baking days and a new favourite was born!

The recipe makes very delicious large loaves of banana bread as well if you prefer that size.

One batch makes 8 mini loaves using our new pan. The loaves are light and delicious and just the right size for lunch or a snack. We takes them in our lunches, serve then for dessert and for snack time, or sometimes even use them to make french toast for breakfast.

The recipe is available on Robin Hood's website.

Project of the Month - April 2013

I am trying something new again this month, crocheting!!!

My grandmother tried to teach me for years and I never caught on. I am still interested in learning but she is no longer here to teach me, so I am trying to teach myself.

I picked a basic dish cloth pattern that does not look too hard and I hope that my project actually looks like it is supposed to when I am done.

Before picture:

Paper Bag Puppet Monsters

We are waiting for spring here - or at least the warmer spring-like days where we can be outside playing in the sunshine while we splash in the puddles made by the melting snow. Unfortunately, it is still winter in Alberta and we still have some cold  days to get past.

We were feeling crafty and decided to make some Paper Bag Monsters. They were really easy to make and we had lots of fun with them afterwards too!

Supplies:
Paper Bag
Markers or Crayons
Glue
Colored Paper
Scissors

We colored our monsters and cut out arms, eyes and a tongue from colored paper and glued them on.

Once the glue dried we put on a puppet show!!!!! It was the perfect craft for a chilly day!!

Flower Pot Cupcakes

This recipe came from the Kraft Canada e-mail newsletter that I subscribe to, Flower Pot Cupcakes.

We wanted something fun that kids would like to take to my daughter's class and these cupcakes were a big hit! Everyone loved them.

They were easy to make and we had a lot of fun assembling them. I would absolutely make these again for a fun treat.

You can find the recipe and instructions here on the Kraft Canada website.

Caribbean Pork 'N Rice

Here is another delicious recipe from Kraft Canada. This one came from a 2008 What's Cooking magazine that I received in the mail.

I have almost the whole collection and refer to them often when I am looking for new recipes to try and old favourites to make. We added this recipe into our meal plan one week and the only thing that we needed to buy was the pork tenderloin. I bought it when it was on sale so this was a fairly economical meal for our family.

We had it for supper one night and then had the leftovers again the next night. Even my daughter, who normally only likes plain white rice, liked it. Next time we may freeze the leftovers for a night when we are too busy to cook.

You can find the recipe here on the Kraft Canada website.

Project of the Month - February 2013

I wanted an easier project this month that my daughter could help me with.We made a trip to Michaels and did a little wandering through the store until we found something that caught our eye.

Here are the supplies that we picked up. All the supplies were on sale the day we were there. It cost us approximately $15 for everything to make both kinds of barrettes.

We used a glue gun, a pair of scissors and some small pliers to make these cool barrettes!

The pinwheel ones with the butterflies are for my daughter. We used hot glue to glue the clips to the backs and the butterflies to the center of the ribbon pinwheels.

The beaded barrettes are for me and I made a set to give as a gift. I glued the set of beads, strung on a nylon string, directly to the barrette.

They all turned out really great and my daughter and I had a wonderful time doing these quick and easy projects together.

Recycled Crayons

These are a great idea for Valentine's Day. We made them for my daughter to take to class and all the kids loved them too!

We used a combination of the tutorials from The Long Thread and from Make and Takes as well as some trial and error of our own.

My daughter had a great time breaking up the old crayons and dividing them among the different spaces in the silicone pan we bought. It was really easy to pop the cooled crayons out of the silicone pan and it was pretty easy to clean up afterwards too. We did put the pan on a cookie sheet so it was easy to get in and out of the oven because the silicone was bendy.

They were a hit with both teachers and kids and we would absolutely make these again.

Banana Bran Muffins

This is one of our “Go-To” recipes when we want to make muffins. It may just be our favourite. We make them plain, with chocolate chips, dried cranberries or fresh berries too if we have them. You can also add nuts but due to allergy concerns I don’t cook or bake with nuts. It is a great way to use up any overripe bananas. The recipe makes a very light, moist and delicious muffin.

It is a great recipe to use when cooking with kids too. My daughter helped with pouring the ingredients, stirring and tasting the finished product.

We got the recipe from Allrecipes. com


Click on the link to get the whole recipe Banana Bran Muffins

Project of the Month - January 2013

Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a good time ringing in the New Year.

Winter is in full swing here and it is COLD! We have our extra blankets on the bed and our flannel pajamas out to keep us warm.

Every year I make my daughter new flannel pajamas. This year I picked out 2 very cool flannels: superheros and froggies.

Here is the before:

And here is the after, 2 pairs of super cute, cuddly and warm flannel pajamas.

Sunshine Cake

This recipe came in an email newsletter that I subscribe to and we were excited to try it.

We really liked it. I took some to work and it got good reviews there too.

It is more of a pound cake than a light fluffy cake, which is not mentioned in the recipe. We had all the ingredients in the house and my daughter and I had a great time making and tasting it, together,

We also used some of it to make bread pudding for dessert one night which was also very delicious.

 The recipe can be found here at the Eagle Brand website

Kids Craft - Homemade Wrapping Paper

We actually made this project for a birthday party but 'tis the season for wrapping and gifting so here it is.

I try not to buy wrapping paper for gifts whenever possible. Our city does not accept it in the blue recycling bins, which means it goes into the landfill and, to me, it seems like a lot of money to spend on something that is so short lived. We reuse gift bags, use the Sunday comics and I also use a lot of fabric gift bags. I love the fabric gift bags because they can be reused for gifting or other purposes indefinitely.

I do love a beautifully wrapped gift but there are ways to present something beautifully without commercial wrapping paper.

My daughter loves to be involved in organizing and wrapping the gifts that we give. We usually get some holiday baking and hot chocolate and make an afternoon of it. We have lots of fun together and at the end of the day, all the gifts are ready to give.

Making your own wrapping paper using brown kraft paper is very easy and inexpensive. It is a great project for kids of all ages.

I bought rolls of kraft paper, on sale for $0.49 each right after Christmas last year. We have used them all year for crafts and to wrap gifts and packages.

Materials:
Kraft paper (you could also use blank newsprint or newspaper)
Stamps and Ink Pads
Markers/ Crayons
Painter's Tape
Scissors (to cut the paper to size)

Instructions:
1. Cut the piece of kraft paper to size. We do this before we start stamping to keep the paper size manageable. If we have a large or heavy package, I sometimes wrap it in blank paper first and then we stamp the paper. It makes it easier to manage.

2. Tape the piece of paper to a flat surface. We use painter's tape to ensure that it will come off the paper with minimal ripping or tearing.

3. Get stamping. Decorate the paper with stamps and markers or crayons.

4. Allow the paper to dry. When dry, remove the tape slowly and wrap the gift.

Cupcake Christmas Tree

This cupcake Christmas Tree is one of our favourite holiday traditions. It is easy to make and no matter where we take it; school, the office or family gatherings it is always well received. It is a great project to do as a family or even to involve all the kids in a school group. We always save a few cupcakes to taste test after the tree is done.    

This year we made the tree to take to the Christmas party at my daughter’s school. 

It is very easy to make and can be adapted to make other shapes for Christmas or any other occasion.
 
Cupcake Christmas Tree

Project of the Month - December 2012

I love earrings, big, small, dangly, sparkly; all of them - I love them. I have multiple piercings in my ears so I can wear more than 1 pair at a time and I really like to mix them up and have some fun. When we go on vacation my favourite souvenir is always a pair of earrings. Right now, my two favourite pairs of souvenir earrings are from San Antonio, Texas and Eumundi, Queensland, Australia. When I wear them I remember all the fun I had on the trips that I made there.

I had some peacock feathers from birds that my Uncle Wes had on his farm. I have been storing them and keeping them safe for years waiting for a blast of inspiration to hit me. I finally decided that I was going to try my hand at making earrings with them. Peacock feather earrings, even though they seem to be all over in the shops now, seem exotic to me and these ones will be special because of where the feathers came from.

I bought some beads and findings from a bead shop in Saskatoon, SK the last time we were there for a visit and got some tips from the girl that was working there as well.

I had enough feathers to make four pairs of earrings, one pair for me and the other pairs as Christmas gifts.

I asked my friend Emily from Prairie Dust to help me make some earrings with my collection of beads and feathers. She said yes and they ended up being more her project than mine - which was okay with me. I had tried a few times before asking her for help and had ZERO luck trying to make them on my own!

She made me four gorgeous pairs of earrings - here are some pictures of her beautiful work!

A close up of each pair

Kids Craft - Handmade Play Dough

LOVE this handmade Play Doh tutorial from the Naughty Secretary Club

Handmade Play Doh

It is fun to make and fun to play with!

Stop by and check it out.

Chai Shortbread

These are one of my most favorite cookies to make. We usually only make them at Christmastime or for a special occasion because otherwise I would eat WAY too many of them. They are a healthier cookie so I guess having a few extra is not all that bad. 

They are very easy to make and we also had all the ingredients in the cupboard already so I did not have to go out and get anything special to make them with. They are excellent warm from the oven and just as tasty the next day.

I initially got the recipe from a Cooking Light magazine that I had picked up in the checkout line one day. They looked easy to make and I thought that they would be a nice change from the regular shortbread that we usually make.

We used our KitchenAid mixer to do the heavy work for us. We started by creaming the butter & sugar together and then added the dry ingredients and then the water.

The recipe I used for Chai Shortbread is here on the Cooking Light website http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/chai-shortbread-10000001687677/  

Or you can click the link to follow it here Chai Shortbread

Grocery Shopping - Make a List

Want a very easy way to save time and money in the grocery store? Make a list!

You can waste a lot of time wandering around the store trying to remember what you needed and then trying to find it in the store.

Years ago, when I was grocery shopping with a baby in tow, I made up a grocery list to make shopping easier for myself.

I put all the items in categories, grouping similarly stored items together. Fruits, vegetables, frozen goods, canned goods, dairy, household items, etc each have their own category. I left a couple lines at the bottom of each category to add things that were not on the list.

I print out a stack of blank lists and keep them in the drawer. Evey week, I take a new one out and keep track of the things that we need on the next grocery shopping trip.

When I hit the grocery store, I start at one side and work my way to the other, while getting the items on the list. It eliminates wandering through the aisles trying to find what I need from a scattered list and keeps me from getting distracted and spending money on things we do not need.

I can complete my grocery shopping in about 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes or longer. Here is a copy of my Grocery List to print out and take with you on your next trip.

Project of the Month - November 2012

Another month - another project.

Several of our friends are expecting babies in late summer and fall this year. I love to make something special, and unique as a gift for a new baby. A keepsake that they will have while they are small and that they can hold on to as they grow up.

I decided to make sets with blankets, bibs and burp clothes, all backed with super soft minky, as gifts for all these new babies.

This is the before shot, a big pile of fabric

And this is the after - all ready for gifting!

Warm, snuggly blankets.

Completed sets with a blanket, 2 burp cloths, bib & a rattle football!

Halloween Hot Dogs - Mummy Dogs

This super easy dinner idea is our Halloween Night tradition. We have these for supper before we go out trick-or-treating. They are like piggies in a blanket with a fun Halloween twist.

We saw the idea in a Halloween magazine that we picked up at the grocery checkout a few years ago.

They are really easy and inexpensive to make and kids LOVE them! This “recipe” makes 8 mummies.

Halloween Hot Dogs - Mummy Dogs