Play-doh and Pizza

We're taking a bit of a break from Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day and focusing our time on more seasonal science. This week were are talking apples since we are headed to an apple orchard on Friday.

We have lots of books on apples and snack has been apple sauce and apple juice.

Today we made Apple Pie Play-doh. Yum!

Apple Pie Play-doh
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon oil (veg, olive ... whatever you have)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup apple juice

Mix all dry ingredients well in a saucepan. Add in wet ingredients and mix well. Cook on stove over medium heat. Make sure you stir constantly to keep the bottom from burning. It doesn't take long and the dough will be ready when it starts pulling away from the side. Remove from heat. Turn out on foil and let cool. Once its cool enough to handle knead the dough. Store in airtight container. Some people add red food coloring, I chose to leave it in its natural state since it looked like apple pie filling.

 This is a double batch

 They made apple treats for an hour and a half!

apple muffins

This year we are participating in Pizza Hut's Book It program! I loved this so much when I was a kid. I'm so glad they offer it for homeschoolers.

Kennedy finished her first Reading Adventure from Hooked on Phonics yesterday! I thought that definitely deserved a reward certificate for her very own pizza. She was so proud to finish off her chart and I am enormously proud of her, too! This little girl works hard!

Last Train to Awesome Town

Come on everybody won't you party with me now!!

Around here we love to listen to the Friday morning song "Last Train to Awesome Town!" It might be Haden's favorite song. He really likes to boogy.

For Made by You Monday I made a bib for Haden featuring his favorite song. I'm sure Rae would not approve of my pictures, but here they are. The Mayor of Awesome Town is sleeping so I'll have to get a pic of him wearing it tomorrow.

I was so excited about our Jo Ann's opening last Friday. I went on Saturday and was overwhelmed with the fabric selection and could not believe all the boy stuff they had! The train is flannel, the red and white minky I had in my stash. I don't have an embroidery machine so I set my stitching so that it is really close together and put it on a zig-zag stitch and then slowly work my way around the applique. Then I backstitched the
wording.


The Mayor of Awesome Town

A Princess Party

I LOVE to plan parties for my kids (and my husband!). I usually start talking with the kids about what kind of party they want about 6 months before hand. That way I have plenty of time to find deals and get everything together.

This year Aubrey had requested a princess party.

First order of business - searching for the perfect cake. Aubrey and I looked at hundreds of pictures. She found the one she was in love with and I made it happen. This was my first time using a diamond impression mat. It was pretty easy and I love the look it gives to the cake! This is one of my most favorite cakes yet!

The decorations . . .

Pink & White Roses

Place Settings



The Table Setting



The Princess!

And games:

Pin the Tiara on the Princess
Place settings repurposed!

Cindrella's Missing Slipper Race



Must beat the stroke of midnight!

 Thank you favors for the visiting princesses:



Monogrammed cookies



Kisses!! {Wordless Wednesday}

September's Create with Me: Fabric Pumpkins

Oooo, I love fall! I love pumkins! I don't love to eat pumpkins or pumpkin flavored food. I do love the smell of pumpkins and fall and the crisp air! Its finally starting to feel like fall here. Well, according to my kids it feels "wintery." That's what happens when it drops from 100* to 70* overnight.

When Kari announced this month's project on UCreate I was super excited! I used some leftover fabric from last month's table runner and some extra fabric I had bought for that project but ended up not using. I used leftover ribbon from this project. I used this tutorial for creating my pumpkins. It was seriously so easy! I had all three complete from gathering fabric to placing them on the shelf in under an hour.

Do you decorate for fall? What's your favorite part of autumn?

She Represents the Lollipop Guild

Backing up from Christmas its time to start thinking about Halloween costumes.

Some years we coordinate costumes, some years we don't.
This year we are.

Aubrey wants to be Dorothy.  We already have the costume since for her very first Halloween she was Toto and Kennedy was Dorothy.

I asked Kennedy who she would want to be from The Wizard of Oz. There was talk of Glenda, there was talk of the Cowardly Lion, but in the end she decided that she would be a Lollipop Kid. We went to work designing the costume. She really did not care for the traditional custom of argyle and shorts. She asked if I could just make her a pillowcase dress (seems to be my specialty .. see here, here, and here) and she would wear some fun tights and have fun hair.

Pink. She specified pink. We went to work. I looked for tights but couldn't find any. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places. So we dug through my sock drawer and found these cute socks. They serve well as tights and became our inspiration.

After we had our color scheme going we went to Hobby Lobby (yay for JoAnn's opening Friday for more options!) to look for fabric. I already had pink so we picked up some orange and some ribbon for the dress and her hair.
I put together some ribbon-o's. That's not a terrific picture of the socks but there is a hint of red in them. I alternated pink, red and orange ribbons for the ribbon-o's. The red ribbon is tiny, I wanted to keep just a hint with orange and pink standing out.

Next I made a fabric lollipop. It was a bit challenging but I love the way it turned out. I used this tutorial for a fleece lollipop  as a guide. I layed out my stips of material, then cut it diagnonally as the tutorial says to do, and pieced them together in one long strip. I then sewed the strip right sides together to make a long tube, stuffed it with cotton and then rolled it. I started sewing it but I kept sticking myself with the needle. I decided that even though it is Halloween and all a blood stained lollipop would not do and brought out the hot glue gun. It worked like a charm and with no blood. I finished it like the tutorial says by clipping a hole in the bottom and inserting a dowel rod using hot glue. I took a clear treat bag, cut it size using pinking shears and then tied it off with leftover ribbon from the ribbon-o's. Makes me want a lollipop!

And finally the pillowcase dress! Orange polk-a-dots with red zig-zag stitching on a pink background. Hobby Lobby even had the perfect ribbon for the dress.

Now, put it all together and you have one very happy Lollipop Kid!



I'm linked up with Skip To My Lou on Made by You Mondays!

Christmas Time is Near

It is. Does it make you want to have a panic attack?
No?
Well, I was feeling pretty good about it. I have been buying Christmas gifts pretty much since the day after Christmas last year. I'm cheap frugal like that.
Target has an amazing toy clearance every July. It works out nicely as we have an August birthday. I try to wait until things are marked 75% so that I can be the cheapest most frugal.  I filled up 2 big Target bags by mid-August with goodies for all 3 kids and spent less than $50 total.
Last week Target had a large selection of summer toys and sporting goods clearanced out at 75% off. I bought the little man a tricycle for his 1st birthday. What, its over 6 months away? Well, when am I going to find another brand new, cute, green $50 trike for $12 again?? Its in storage. Birthday gift - taken care of!
On to my point -- its crunch time. I was feeling pretty good about myself as I browsed the 90% off dollar stop (yes, 30 cents each!!) for stocking stuffers on Tuesday. I felt proud of the fact that for once I was ahead of schedule. As I mosied on to the back of the store I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. There, near the back, on the far left wall were Christmas lights. And an entire aisle already overflowing with Christmas cards. I'm behind. It was the second to last day of summer and I was behind.

Fear not, faithful blog followers. All none of you. I have 2 gifts stored in the sewing cabinet waiting to be sewn and wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree (which if you're counting will be going up exactly 9 weeks from tomorrow).

Gift # 1   Hooded Towels

For this handmade gift I will use this tutorial. Its super easy! I picked up 2 hot pink Ralph Lauren towels on clearance at T.J Maxx the other night. I made a couple hooded towels earlier this year using towels that have been in use for 8 1/2 years for practice's sake. I am excited to make new (bigger) ones as a surprise. With about 20 minutes of my time and a little monogramming they'll be good to go!

Gift # 2  Princess & the Pea Softie

For this handmade gift I will use this tutorial. I know a little girl who can quote word for word the entire story of the Princess and the Pea that will be beyond thrilled Christmas morning!

Are you ready for Christmas? Will you be making any handmade gifts this year? Only 113 days til Christmas!