Salt Dough Beads

January and February are NOT my favourite months in the Great White North.  If it weren't for viruses and illnesses I might be singing a different tune...maybe we'd get outside and enjoy the cold instead of staying inside, loathing a cold!
So, we have to find things to keep us busy!  Sophia and I made Salt Dough Beads!  This was a great project since she was home for a few days were were able to work on them over many days.  They were super easy.

Ingredients
1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup luke warm water
Directions
1. In a large bowl mix salt and flour.
2. Gradually stir in water. Mix well until it forms a doughy consistency.
3. With your hands, form a ball with your dough and kneed it for at least 5 minutes. The longer you kneed your dough the smoother it will be.

Store your salt dough in a air tight container and you will be able to use it for days.

Bake your creations at 200 F until they are dry. The amount of time needed to bake your creations depend on size and thickness; thin flat ornaments may only take 45-60 minutes, thicker creations can take 2-3 hours or more.

You can paint your creations with acrylic paints and seal with varnish or polyurethane spray.
You can let your salt dough creations air dry.

Fall Craft Idea

Slip the lanterns over a twinkle lights.  Don't worry, as long as they're indoor lights, your safe from overheating. 

Back to School

Mornings can be hectic when the kids get back to the ol' grind. One of my biggest morning frustrations is trying to find all of those little elastics and hair do-dads that I need to get the hairdo just right. I came up with and idea to help myself out this year, hopefully this will make my mornings run a little more smoothly. I picked up a small tackle box at the Dollar Store, and because it looked a bit "boring", I grabbed some decorations to fancy it up a little bit while I was there.

              Most hairstyles courtesy of www.princesshairstyles.com   Follow links for tutorials.

1. Princess Up-Do
2. Criss Cross Braids
3. Valentine's Day Hearts
4. Dutch Braids
5. Crazy Hair Day at School...(no link for that)

Happy Father's Day

 


 Things you will need:

• Rocks

• Hand Print Kit or Plaster of Paris

• Plastic or Aluminum Plate

• Modge Podge 

Our firtst collection of rocks were a bit too big for the size of our plate so, we went back out and collected some smaller gravel size rocks.  So, place the rocks in the empty plate to make sure they fit.

Lay them out the same way outside the plate.

Don't worry if it looks a little rough, when it's dry you can sand down the edges and give it a scrub with a stiff brush to clean off the rocks.

Add a coat of Mod Podge to bring out the rocks and...

Voila!

Be My Valentine

Step 1:  Take a cute picture of your valentine with an outstretched arm (like they're holding a lolly pop).

 

Step 2:  Add some stickers and text using your favourite photo editing program...I use Picnik.

 Step 3:  Print your photo and punch holes at the top and bottom of the outstretched hand.

  

Step 4:  Insert the lolly pop through the holes and TA-DA!  Super cute Valentine's Day Card!!

Snow Day Survival!!!

    
Today was out third snow day in as many weeks!  Between snow days and sick days, I'm having to come up with a lot of things to do while I'm trapped in the house with a 5 year old.  I'm a little out of practice.  These days, when she's not at school, we're either playing outside, visiting friends or at the Science Centre...we don't spend a lot of time in the house anymore!
The last day she stayed home due to weather, it we got about 20cm of snow, today it poured rain all day...weird weather!  So, we decided to make an equally weird experiment...SLIME!!


Cornstarch Slime
 
 What You'll Need

• bowl
• cornstarch
• water (the amount of water required will depend on the amount of cornstarch used)
• large spoon
• food colouring

What to Do

• Place the cornstarch in the bowl.
• Use the large spoon to stir the cornstarch while adding the water a little at a time. Keep stirring and adding small amounts of water until all the cornstarch is wet.  It won't be easy to stir, you might have to use your hands...it's weird stuff!
• Add a few drops of food colouring to the mixture.
• Keep adding small amounts of water and stirring until a thick slime forms.
• Pick up a handful of slime and squeeze it, it will feel hard, open your and and watch it run through your fingers!  It's messy but an easy clean up.

It is the ‘shear force’ which causes the slime to become thicker.   As soon as the shear force is removed, the slime becomes runny again.
Try mixing plain flour with water – does this behave in the same way as cornstarch slime? It is a little bit messier.

Mud Room Before and After

Before

After

I bought this great fabric at Walmart, it was sold by the yard and the measurements seemed right (I'm not the most accurate measurer) but once I finished the curtains they were a wee bit too short...I haven't made very many curtains.  Anyway, it worked out well because I had to think of something to fix the problem.  I came across this tutorial on pillow case edging and decided to try it with the curtains and I think it turned out great!

Horton Hears a Who Party!!!

I wanted guests to think that they had stepped into the pages of a Dr Seuss book, but, decorations weren't easy to come by so I had to get creative!  I ransacked many of the local furniture stores' cardboard bins, to find large pieces of cardboard, which I used to create the characters from the book.  It turns out that it was a very simple and I think successful way to create just the look I was going for!

Horton Ears