A Pinterest Inspired Art Day

We are having a light school week this week since Flying Fish is home with us. I decided to browse some of the pins on my Pinterest boards and see if I could find some activities that I thought the kids would enjoy.

 I found some fun watercolor painting projects that looked like they would fit the bill. Off I went to tell the kids that we were having an art day. That is a fun thing! They were very excited to know that our regularly scheduled day was being exchanged for painting! I used to hate painting activities. I guess that isn't entirely accurate. I hated cleaning up after painting activities. But then I discovered the wonderful world of watercolors! Quick drying, low mess, hard to mess up, WATERCOLORS!

We decided to do a couple of activities because, to be honest, once the paint is out everyone has such a good time it is hard to stop. The first was in honor of St. Patrick's Day. We made wonderful clover paintings.

These were super easy and turned out great.  I love how everyone made the pictures their own by adding clouds or swirls.

  But my favorite by far were the little birdie paintings. Looking at these birds just makes me happy! I love, love, love the option of using permanent markers to add the details in the painting.

 I think this falls under the "why didn't I think of that" category of life. It is definitely one of the things I love about Pinterest - all of the clever ideas people have. And that they are so willing to share them! I must admit not all of the the projects I have gotten off of Pinterest have worked quite like I thought. But this was a definite success!

 

Yummy Ginger Cookies

I decided to make some cookies yesterday.  Just because.  I had a recipe for some ginger snap cookies.  I never used to like ginger snaps that much, but lately I've really fell in love with ginger.  I found some ginger hard candies at a natural candy store online and I just can't seem to get enough.  So, I decided to try my hand at making some ginger cookies.  They turned out SO YUMMY!  The best ginger cookies ever!  Even the kids said they couldn't imagine why anyone would by those hard ginger snaps at the store when they can have this wonderful deliciousness at home!  Here is the recipe:

Ginger Cookies
2 cups fresh ground spelt flour
1 Tbl ground ginger
2 tsp baking soda
1 heaping tsp ground cinnamon (we LOVE cinnamon)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup palm shortening
2/3 cup coconut sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup dark molasses
1/3 cup cinnamon sugar (just mix some cinnamon and sugar together)

Preheat oven to 350*.  Mix flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a mixing bowl with a whisk.  Place the shortening and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until blended.  Beat in egg and molasses.  Slowly mix in flour mixture.  Don't over mix.  Once a soft dough forms, pinch off small amounts and roll into a ball.  Roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Flatten the cookies slightly and bake about 10 minutes.  Enjoy the wonderful smell in your house.  Let them cool as long as you can stand and then enjoy them while they are warm and soft!  Store in an airtight container.

 

Homemade Deoderant

We are trying to avoid as many chemicals in our house as we can while also trying to save some money.  Homemade deodorant does both of those things!  It is super simple to make and has worked wonderfully well for me and my family.  I think it works better than the traditional store bought variety!  After researching briefly some of the concerns about traditional deodorant/antiperspirant I found several claims that the aluminum found in deodorant may be linked to breast cancer and/or Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.  However, there are just as many claims that report no correlation at all.  So who do you believe?  Then you can look at studies about how effective deodorants are at preventing perspiration.  One German study found that it doesn't work that well, 38% effective at best.   Each family should decide for themselves what theory they want to follow, but for our family we decided it just wasn't worth the risk.  I will tell you that although it does prevent odor, it doesn't prevent sweating.  However, I feel that sweating is one of the ways your body releases toxins, so, I don't really feel a need to prevent it.  I just don't want to smell like a boy's locker room!  And we live where it is HOT.  Really, really HOT!  My first experiment was simply coconut oil, cornstarch and baking soda.  It worked really well, but I found it was difficult to keep it at a good consistency.  When it was warm it melted to a lotion like consistency.  When it was cold, it was so hard I couldn't get it out of the jar.  So I went looking for a way to tweak it a bit.  I found that adding beeswax made it just right!  Here is my recipe:

1/2 Cup Coconut oil
1 1/2 Tbl beeswax pellets
1/2 Cup baking soda
1/2 Cup cornstarch (or arrowroot powder)
10-20 drops of tea tree oil

Here's how you do it!  Mix the coconut oil and beeswax pellets and melt in a double boiler.  I used a glass measuring cup in a pan of water. 

While they are melting, mix the cornstarch and baking soda.  Once the oil and beeswax are melted, add them to the baking soda mix.

Add the essential oil.  I like the tea tree because it also has antibacterial properties.  But you can experiment and find one you like.  Once it is all mixed up, put it in your container.  I use old deodorant containers and it works like a charm.  It will harden up as it sits. 

   

 

And that's all there is to it!  You can adjust the recipe depending on how much you need to make.  You may also need to adjust the ratio of baking soda to cornstarch if you find that it causes irritation. 

Feast or Famine?

I was thinking the other day.  A dangerous pastime, I know.  I have come to realize that we are a family of bingers.  I'm not sure that is a word, but it suits us.  When we find a new show, activity, food, song, etc that we like we relish it.  We submerge ourselves in it.  It is an all encompassing past time, until, suddenly it isn't.  Homeschooling allows us to indulge in this submersion.  Let me give an example.  The other week we were learning about ancient Egypt with Clownfish.  I found a printable sarcophagus that I thought he would enjoy coloring while I finished Mummies in the Morning.  He did.  In fact, he enjoyed it so much he asked me to print out more Egyptian coloring pages for him to work on as we continued reading, which I did.  That day was followed by the next in which his sisters caught the coloring bug.  We are currently learning about China with them, so I printed several Chinese coloring pages.  They could not get enough.  The whole next week they sat and colored while I read our school books.  Then they cut out the images and made up elaborate games using them.  They would actually beg for school, just so they could color.  Clownfish would take sheets into his room at night where he would sit and color.  This lasted for almost 2 weeks.  And then suddenly, it was done.  At one time, Mandarinfish was enthralled with ancient Greece.  She read everything she could get her hands on about all of the gods and goddesses.  She made up games involving them.  She would look at ancient Greek and try to translate her name or other words into it.  This lasted almost a year.  And then it was over.  Although you can still ask her about almost any god or goddess or story relating to them and she can tell you who they are.  My knowledge is pretty much restricted to Zeus.  I find it very interesting to watch as they immerse themselves in different things.  I find myself doing the same thing.  Something will spark my interest and it is all I will do (sewing) until something else comes along.   Unfortunately, I have never felt the need to immerse myself in cleaning.  Or working out. 

A Healthy Breakfast

I am on a quest to clean up our diet.  We have been on this journey for a couple of years now.  God has been gracious to put some wonderful people in my life to challenge me and teach me about healthier eating.  I have started being one of "those people".  You know the ones.  They are constantly reading every nutrition label.  Eating things like bone broth, and coconut sugar.  Avoiding food dyes.  Luckily, these changes have been gradual so the kids don't even know how weird we are.  One of the things that used to be a staple in our house was the instant oatmeal packets.  When the kids were just babies I used to heat it up and add some yogurt to it and it was quickly one of their favorite breakfasts.  Well, one day I started looking at the ingredients in those handy little packets.  Take a look - WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS, SUGAR, BLUEBERRY FLAVORED AND COLORED FRUIT PIECES (DRIED FIGS, DRIED CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SUGAR, DEXTROSE, GLYCERIN, BLUEBERRY JUICE CONCENTRATE, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL [SOY AND/OR COTTONSEED]**, ARTIFICIAL BLUEBERRY FLAVOR, CITRIC ACID, BLUE 2 LAKE, RED 40 LAKE), CREAMING AGENT (MALTODEXTRIN, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL**, WHEY, SODIUM CASEINATE), SALT, CALCIUM CARBONATE, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, GUAR GUM, OAT FLOUR, NIACINAMIDE*, REDUCED IRON, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE*, RIBOFLAVIN*, SOY LECITHIN, THIAMIN MONONITRATE*, FOLIC ACID*.
This long list of things that I can't even pronounce is on the label for the blueberry and cream oatmeal.  Now I don't know about you, but before my eyes were opened to cleaner eating I was under the impression that blueberry oatmeal was good for you.  It sounds good for you.  But not so.  So here is our healthier version:

Healthy Oatmeal
Old Fashioned Oats
Coconut sugar
Fruit or yogurt

Just those 3 ingredients.  Now you can mix it up and make it something really special.  How about cooked apples and cinnamon.  Or blueberries and vanilla.  Or bananas and walnuts.  The choices are limitless!  The not-so-little ones still enjoy yogurt in it.  But be careful, a lot of the yogurts out there are also filled with dyes and high fructose corn syrup.  Luckily, it is super easy to make your own yogurt.  I'll tell you how another time or if you are impatient you can google it.  Now oatmeal can be healthy again.  And cheaper.  One large container of old fashioned oats lasts a lot longer and is a lot cheaper than the individual packets.  And it really only takes about 5 minutes to cook. Happy Cooking!

A New Wreath

We've been in our "new" house about a year and a half now.  I'm slowly getting to smaller projects, like curtains and a wreath for the door.  I've been looking through pinterest and searching the web and I love the burlap wreaths pictured there.  When I found a wire wreath frame at the thrift store, I snatched it up and started looking for instructions on how to transform it into one of these burlap wreaths.  Here were some of my inspirations:

http://undermypolkadotumbrella.blogspot.com/2011/01/burlap-wreath-tutorial-giveaway.html

http://chiconashoestringdecorating.blogspot.com/2012/09/handmade-burlap-wreath-sneak-peak.html

So, off to Hobby Lobby I went!  I LOVE Hobby Lobby!  I could wander the aisles for hours, and I have done it, just ask my children!  I found some burlap ribbon in the floral section, and some gauze ribbon in the ribbon section.  Both on sale!  Yay!  I found a cute little burlap flower on one of the aisle ends and I had the raffia at home.  I took all of it home, sat on the floor and watched Once Upon A Time with the kiddos.  Have you seen that show?  It is one of our favorites! While I watched, I tucked, and gathered, and poofed, until the whole wreath was filled in.  If I had it to do over, I would have gotten 2 rolls of the burlap, but with the ribbon I think it looks pretty full.  I  attached the flower and raffia with some craft wire I stole borrowed from mandarinfish.  I had picked up a wooden shamrock on sale and attached it to the wreath for a little holiday cheer.  Once it was done, onto the door it went!

I'm pretty proud of how it turned out!  Now my door looks decorated and hopefully it will take the focus off of the 4 inches of dust that has built up around my house from the recent dust storms.  We'll see if these desert winds will leave my wreath alone, or if it will one day soon belong to one of my neighbors!

A "Scrappy" Challenge

I have a tendency to hoard fabric.  Even little pieces and scraps.  I can't seem to throw any of it away.  I have managed to somewhat organize my gigantic pile of scraps into color coded boxes.  But, even separated and organized, things were beginning to get a little bit out of control.  So, I decided it was time to use up some of those scraps.  Here is a sneak peek at my latest project.  It is a scrappy string quilt.

 

I just love looking at it!  It is so colorful!

 And here is how I did it. 

I started with the white strips in the middle.  I cut out as many strips as I could find going through my cabinet.  All of these strips were 2.5" x 19 ".  I picked this size because I have a 10" square and when you turn it diagonally it is about 18 inches.  Then, I went through all my scraps picking out any that could be used as the stripes.  I didn't worry about how wide or long they were, I just put them all in a pile.  It looked a little like this:

Now, if just the sight of this chaos overwhelms you, fear not!  You can organize your scraps in pretty little pressed piles and keep right on sewing.  I, dear friend, do not function that way.  So, all the scraps got tossed on the sewing table and then the sewing began!  I would pick up a white strip and then randomly pick a color.  I started with the longest strips and gradually worked down to smaller ones on either side of the white strip.  When each "square" was finished, it looked something like this:

My experience has been that it doesn't matter what colors go with what, as long as you put enough different colors and prints together, it all looks good.  So, I didn't worry so much about coordinating different colors.  Once you think you've got enough sewn together, iron everything flat. 

I pressed my seams out from the middle on each side.  But you can open them and press them flat if you want.  Once it is all nice and pressed, take out your square.  If you don't have a square, you could just use a rotary cutter and a straight edge, but the square really makes this MUCH easier. 

I slid the square around a bit until the white strip seemed to be in the middle and all of the corners were covered. 

Using a rotary cutter, cut each side.

This is the square when it is all cut and pressed.  Now, I know it doesn't look that impressive sitting all by itself.  But once you add some friends.......

it really begins to look amazing!

This is a great beginner quilt because nothing really has to line up, or be cut exactly, or measured.  It could be as big or as small as you would like.  I hope you check back in to see the final results!