Mom Is Teaching

You know, there’s a lot of talk about “going green” and I mean, I even got some toothbrushes that were recyclable to do in a review.  But, hey, you know, we gotta do what we gotta do.  I wouldn’t say that my family is big time into recycling.  My mom keeps cans and sells them and anything obvious that we can reuse is obviously handed down or shoved in the closet just waiting on the best time to use it.

But, one of the most fun recycling items was when we did crayons.  Having owned a daycare, crayons were a dime a dozen.  They were broken quiet easily and there were fat ones and skinny ones and every color under the rainbow.  So, one of the biggest projects that my older kids did in the summer was to take all the crayons that were stuffed in the bottom of boxes and baskets, sort them out and use a little gadget to melt them.  And, naturally, they mixed and matched some colors to make their own special colors too with some of them. 

So, if recycling is your thing, go read about recycling crayons and while you are there, check out the chance to win $20K by telling your recycling stories.

Some other great articles you will find on Blissfully Domestic relate to Organic Foods, getting kids to wash their hands, the spellquizzer I mentioned the other day and the academic discounts at JoureyEd.  Don’t get left out.

I’ll be waiting here for you to come back  and share your stories

This was originally written and posted on Purpl4 Trail but some things are just too good to mess with.  So, hang on as Purple Train entertains us once again.

PurpleTrail is a brand new way to organize and manage parties, get-togethers, events and meetings. With it’s fresh perspective, PurpleTrail brings together some of the best features and experiences to help you easily manage your event.

Short video Tour - http://purpletrail.com/pt2/cons/mkt/tour/

Since the trend has become save not spend our money, many of us aren’t going out as often as we’d like to.  But that doesn’t mean we have to fore go a social life completely!  Instead get innovative and find creative ways to stay in with your friends.  You can start by creating a dinner club.

A dinner club is a great way to keep in touch and get a meal out! Get a group of friends together that enjoy some great food and wine.  Rotate houses monthly.  The person hosting is responsible for a modest dinner and the guests are responsible for dessert and drinks. Establish some ground rules like the meal can’t cost over x amount per person and the wine can’t exceed x amount per bottle to keep everyone on the same page (and from going overboard!) You can bring the kids along and let them play or consider hiring one babysitter for all the kids as the adults enjoy a meal together. You can split the cost of the sitter with everyone who brings their children.

To much mix it up, try creating various themes like “Italian feast” and make Italian food, bring Italian wine and maybe a little gelato for dessert! Or  a ” comfort food”  theme where you serve mac n’ cheese, and some hot fudge sundays.

As for some activity ideas, you can play board games, watch family friendly movies or play some old favorites like charades or pictionary! Check out PurpleTrail’s printable games for some great group entertainment ideas!

Fabulous and Single? A dinner club is still a fantastic way to keep your social life going without spending your paychecks on $12 cocktails.  Each time your group meets, invite everyone to bring a friend, that way you are constantly meeting new people.

If you don’t want to make it a dinner club, make it a dessert club or wine club instead.  Any kind of club that everyone is interested in putting a little effort into will be fun.

Keep everyone on the same page by using PurpleTrail online invites.  It’s easy to communicate and coordinate a bring along list with PurpleTrail. Bon Appetite!

Guest Post today comes from Purple Trail

PurpleTrail is a brand new way to organize and manage parties, get-togethers, events and meetings. With it’s fresh perspective, PurpleTrail brings together some of the best features and experiences to help you easily manage your event.

Short video Tour - http://purpletrail.com/pt2/cons/mkt/tour/

Memorial Day Activities For The Whole Family

Memorial Day is all about honoring those that have served and died for America’s freedom.  Show your appreciation for local veterans, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, police and fire departments by cheering them on and clapping along to the marching band. Here are a few other activities you could include:

• Memorial Day Parade: So what if it’s around your neighborhood or from your front yard to your back yard? Your guests will have a blast getting ready. Provide red, white and blue crepe paper, flags of all sizes, a toy drum and more. Let people make decorations and signs to carry (you provide the materials). Vote on who should be the Grand Marshal.

• Memorial Day Kite Flying Crafts: If you feel like being crafty, you can even make your own. You will need wooden dowels, sturdy paper and string. You can even plan a few extras for your guests. If the wind has kicked up and you have access to a large, flat outdoor area, give it a whirl.

• Kids Craft Area: Kids would love crafts in the house or a shaded area of the yard. Set up a table with paper, crayons, coloring pages, glue and scissors. You could even give them modeling clay, or set up a sand or water activities table.
• Lawn Games: For adults, plan games like horseshoes, bocce ball, Frisbee or a water balloon toss. Just remember, if you’re planning a water balloon toss or other water activities, you might want to warn guests ahead of time so they can prepare by bringing dry clothes.

Take a look at PurpleTrail’s online invitations and printable party games.  There’s one for every occasion!

It looks like I might be stuck in a rut here but, I’m back to another photo Valentine craft that is just as cute as a button…or a CD, whichever floats your boat.  You need, an old disk, or a new one, these days they are dirt cheap, a photo, scissors, double stick tape, adhesive backed felt, tacky glue, paint, scrap of cardboard and some flour/salt dough.

Then, follow the directions below and make yourself a nice pretty gift for your child’s teacher or if you are the teacher, for your students to give their parents.

Use Flour/Salt Dough to mold a base for your photo frame. Make sure that it is at least 1" deep and 2" around. Make it any shape you want. Use cardboard or a table knife to make a slot in your base. Go at least half way down through base and wiggle it back and forth a little to widen. Bake or air dry. Paint.

Cut photo into a 3" circle. Attach it to CD with double face tape. Cover the back of the CD with sticky back felt. Use tacky glue to secure in into slot in base.

I don’t necessarily have a real desk or office anymore.  My desk is my recliner and a laptop tray.  But, I do have business cards and I have them strewn from hither to yon.  So, if you want a neat and pretty Valentine business card holder to go on your desk, then you’ve got a time and a place to make one with your children.  You need a photo, glue stick, card stock paper, scissors, a low temp glue gun and an empty cassette holder.  Do you guys know what cassette are?

Then, it’s simple, you just open the case and fold top all the back.

Then, mount the photo on card stock, cut it out in an interesting way.  Hot glue to the lid flap, hot glue rocks on the front, or silk flowers or seashells or what ever kind of trinkets you might have to decorate with, beads maybe even.  Your imagination is the limit.

Listen, for real, there are no Valentine’s no more precious for parents than ones that contain photos of their children in them.  So, if you are thinking that making a Valentine for your child’s teacher or maybe you just want to pass the idea long to the teacher or daycare workers, you can get some great ideas at Making Friends and they will give you the lo down on the exacts of each project, along with the supplies needed, etc.

One of my favorites is this Valentine Heart Magnet and the supplies are simple, large red foamie hearts or red craft foam and scissors for cutting out your own hearts.  You need foamie candy heart stickers, tacky glue, magnetic sheets, scissors and your favorite photo. 

Then, it’s as simple as cutting a heart of out red craft foam then cutting  a photo to fit within the heart. Peel and stick foamie candy hearts around frame. Cut a piece of magnet and glue to back.

Yes, I’ve been bombarded by being in Nashville at Blissdom this weekend but man oh man, did that ever put me in the mood for love.  I loved so many of the great women that I had longed to meet and with Valentine’s just around the corner, I am here to give you some craft ideas.  Are you ready?

First, there’s a heart mobile that I think is just cute as a button, you can find the directions here.  And, since everyone seems to think that Valentine’s means you have to have lots of candy and sweets, you can find some great Raspberry Hearts here that won’t send your child overboard on an over-done sugar high.

If you are planning a Valentine’s party, then you most certainly want to check out the Valentine’s Love article and find more of your favorite Valentine’s Day Activities.  There’s always the Valentine Tradition of a Secret Post Office where you can get some great cards to make you feel the whole month long.

The posts I did at Christmas for crafts were big hits.  And, let’s admit it, if you are a parent, it doesn’t matter how your child does his primary learning, it is always fun to sit down with your children and create projects, do crafts, play games.  So, I’m going take a few days and throw some crafts at you.

If you have a particular craft that you do that you are really fond of, email it to me and I’ll feature it as well as put your blog link in the post as well. 

So, here we go…

3D Heart Paper Craft – the template that is mentioned in the directions is linked at the bottom

This is a cute, simple paper craft that results in a 3D ornament you can hang around the room.

Materials:

• printer
• paper (I prefer construction paper as it’s a bit sturdier)
• scissors
• OPTIONAL:  crayons (or paint, markers, etc)
• string, thread, ribbon or wool

Instructions:

• Print template and color as desired
• Cut out the template pieces (may require adult assistance and can be done before hand.
• Cut on one of the dotted lines right up to the center.
• Pick out the two matching hearts (this is good practice for young children!)
• Slide the hearts together, top to bottom 
  all I have is the snowflake image to show you how it’s done
• Glue a ribbon or thread onto the top (or hole punch a small hole and tie a ribbon through  (I used a thread and it worked really well)

Options:

• instead of simply coloring the template, here are some thoughts for alternatives:
  • silver sparkles or sparkle glue
  • Salt Drip
    • 3 parts flour
    • 1 part salt
    • food coloring (red  would be nice)
    • water
      Mix together 3 parts flour, 1 part salt, food coloring, and enough water to make a dripping consistency but not too runny.  Use a popsicle stick to drip onto paper shapes.  Will dry hard and sparkly.
  • grated chalk (take a piece of sidewalk or chalkboard chalk and rub it with course sandpaper to get chalk dust.  Pour the dust over glue covered paper.   Pink chalk would be nice.

Notes:

• There are some brief instructions written right on the template
• If you want your hearts to be two-sided, print two templates out and glue matching hearts together back to back.  Do everything else as directed.  This is what I did in the photo above.
• Close template window when done printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

I did buy some new window clings for Valentine’s at our house this year, but you know what, we’ve yet to put them on the doggone windows.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow!

And, another craft tomorrow too.

I don’t know if I have ever mentioned here but anyone who has emailed with me probably already knows it, but I have 10 blogs.  Two are sitting idle doing nothing, 2 are for advertising and celebrity gossip and get very little attention and the other 6, I am actively pursing.  And, if you get email from me, you see all the links in my signature. 

Last night I joined some women (and a few men) for what was known as "girls night out" (and some gents night out) on twitter for a big party.  Now, let me say that there was very few women or men in this big party that I had ever chatted with before.  But, I made some great contacts and some excellent information was put in my little pea brain.

Now, have I ever mentioned that I have about 200 blogs in my feed reader.  Have I ever mentioned that I rarely stay caught up.  On New Year’s Eve I about 7:30 or 8:00, I opened Bloglines and saw that I had 938 feeds in my reader.  So, I set a lofty goal of reading all of them by midnight and commenting on at least one third of them.

Let’s just say…I might would have been able to have read them all but I was tweeting and commenting and thus that little goal was not obtained.  I did finish up some time New Years Night and I did comment on almost 1/3 of them. 

So, I told you all that to say this, of all the blogs I read, I often run up on great websites that I want to share with you all but I don’t want you to think I found them on my own.  I mean, that would be real noble of me to make you think I’ve been sitting around all day researching this for you, uh?

Well, anyway, I opened my Bloglines earlier today and it was back up in the 300’s.  So, I started reading with my goal to comment on 1/3.  But, again, I got side tracked and I’m still working on that.  But I did find an awesome website courtesy of a blog I read by a woman name Yvonne.  She just goes by Y and her blog is Joy Unexpected.  She also has a weight loss blog but I can’t find the name of it or find it right now (I will though).  Anyway, she had this website featured on her blog and I’m merely passing along information, I’m certainly not going to take credit for find it.  Although, it is wonderful and you would all think I was great if I had found it myself.  Oh well, sorry.

The name of the website is Born Learning and you have to go check it out.  It is chalked full of information and I really spent way too much time over there.  Remember my goal was to read 300 posts and comment on 100 but..no, I’ve been on that site perusing the stuff.

So, I was out scouting around trying to find some last minute things to do before I was convinced that strangling my children was going to make good entertainment.  I mean, we don’t have any pets to balance things on their head like Dooce or anything and our house is filthy and needs cleaning but who wants to handle that?  Not me.  So, I dug up some other stuff…..Here’s a few of my finds…

1.  Hot Chocolate Cones from A Simply Divine Christmas are just wonderful and will make lovely presents for cousins and friends.

2. My favorite thing from being a kid, making peppermint cream sweets - they rock!

3. Martha Stewart as always has some great things to do (seriously her staff must never sleep!).

4. youcanmakethis.com has some lovely projects and the instructions are easy to follow.

5. Salt Dough Tree Decorations Lily loves making these at holiday club so I thought we’d have a go at home, dough and glitter making a giant mess - what’s not to love?

6. As my daughter is just getting into sewing and I have some red felt material left over from the Christmas play outfit;  I thought we could make some mini Christmas stockings for the hallway decorations.

7.  And of course the most important thing to make over the holidays, A Gingerbread House! Here’s a great recipe/instructionsfor a Gingerbread House, but I’m nowhere near that good at cooking or craft so I’m going to buy a kit from Tesco. Here’s the terrible effort from last year, we had lots of fun making it but it looked terrible.  At least it tasted pretty good 

The ideas came from Thames Vally Mums Activities for Children during the Christmas Holidays.  And, according to them, the photos are courtesy of Martha Stewart

Here’s a few ideas!

Rice Crispy Snowballs

Scrummy rice crispy snowballs are so easy to make. Making them is a great fun activity with a scrumptious reward at the end! Don’t forget the apron!

Simply melt some white chocolate in a bowl, mix in some rice crispies. Then take a small handful of the mixture and roll it into snowball shape. Place the snowball onto a plate and put into the fridge to cool down.

After a couple of hours the snowballs should have harden and will be ready to eat!

Now, we have Raw Art

Raid your fridge for any leftover vegetables - they can make excellent tools for painting and printing.

Yesterday Madeleine and I found some mushrooms, broccoli, carrots and a cabbage leaf lurking in the bottom of my fridge (Mummy isn’t the best cook in the world, painting with vegetables seems much more fun than cooking!!).

We sliced a couple of mushrooms in half, diced one carrot and then sliced another length ways. We pealed one cabbage leaf off and cut a few stems of broccoli. We were now ready to paint!

Madeleine simply dabbed the vegetable into the paint and then either used it like a paint brush or as a stamp. The vegetables made lovely shapes, especially the head of the broccoli and the cabbage leaf.

At this point you are probably imagining a masterpiece - but most of Madeleine’s creations do end up looking the same - one day…

I’m sure there are other fruits of vegetables that work just as well…any suggestions…

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Ingredients:
• 16 oz white chocolate
• 2 red, white, green striped candy cane, crushed into
   small pieces
Directions:
1.  Butter a baking sheet (grease with butter) and set
     aside.
2.  Heat white chocolate in double boiler over low heat
     until all is melted.
3.  Add crushed candy cane to white chocolate.
4.  Pour mixture onto wax paper-lined cookie sheet,
     spreading very thinly with spatula.
5.  Let the peppermint bark cool and break it into
5.  pieces.
6.  Store in airtight container lined with wax paper,
     separating the layers with wax paper.

Send Santa a Letter and He’ll Send You One Back

Yes I am still on this kick where I get to reading magazines.  No, I  haven’t actually been reading in doctor’s offices this time, these emails came straight to my box.  So, naturally, I just gotta share.

Giving Tree

A few years ago, my family helped a single mom find public housing right before the holidays. My kids and their friends collected basic supplies, and we got the family a small tree. Each child created an ornament for the tree, which we set up in the family’s new home. It was such a meaningful way for us to make a contribution.

– Dana D. B.; Little Rock, Arkansas

Candy Shoppe

Old-fashioned penny candy makes a sweet statement.

Mint Condition

For a more traditional flavor, combine peppermint and spearmint starlights.

Rainbow Bright

For each project start with a 6-inch Styrofoam wreath. Except where noted in the following slides, use a glue gun to attach candy. Hang wreaths (using ribbon or a floral wreath hanger) well out of the reach of children under 3.

And this one is probably my favorite

Holly Jolly

Gummy berries and fruit slices add a pop of color to a pretty Life Savers wreath.

Special Delivery

During the holidays, we spend a day making healthy brown-bag lunches to deliver to the homeless. We get a family assembly line going with my three daughters. Then we head downtown to give away the meals.

– Rachael R. S., Santa Barbara, California

Change for Good

Throughout the year, we collect our spare change in a Christmas jar, and then give the grand total to someone in need during the holiday season. It’s really amazing how those coins add up — last year we were able to donate more than $300.

– Jamie H.; Las Vegas, Nevada

Do you remember way back when……I told you that I read lots of parenting magazines and sometimes I found them helpful and others…well….there simply wasn’t much to see.

Well, this time, Parents online has some really cool crafts.  And, so, I’m going to share a few with you, you can go read all the directions yourself at the links.

Jolly Elves are just as cute as a button..or something like that.  You can read how to do them here.

Oh and here is an awesome Tree Skirt…you gotta see this…It’s made with cookie cutters…

Have a Ball!

Squeeze paint inside clear ornaments for a swirly effect.

Advent Calendar

Each day, your child can pull out a tiny sweet treat or a mini ornament to stick on the tree.

Frosty and Friends

Snow cute! These soft puppets are made from craft scraps, spare buttons, and socks.

Simple Ornaments

Raid your craft drawer to decorate the tree: Make a flurry of snowflakes from buttons and Popsicle sticks, and jazz up felt birds with sparkly sequins.

Snow Globe

Encase photos, crafty creatures, or holiday trinkets inside a plastic cup to make a nifty tree decoration.

Family Photo Wreath

Take your pictures out of the frame and create a clever holiday decoration.

Ok, that should keep us all busy for a while, don’t you think?