Box puppets

Waiting for kids to sleep so I can start sewing. There is a noisy thunderstorm outside but hopefully they will be asleep soon.

The other day Alexander was sick and I had to cancel a play date and so he was feeling miserable because he was sick and disappointed but of course after a dose of Panadol he insists he is fine. I had frozen berry boxes which I thought looked quite cute. Emily said her’s was a giraffe, Alexander decided his was a frog. I thought they could rip paper and glue but my poor sick boy got tired and Emily wanted to do the Christmas boxes so I ended up covering them in coloured paper.

I cut up an egg carton for eyes, some white paper for mouth, crayons for decorating. Crouched behind a toy box we had a puppet show.

Christmas gift bags

I had some empty cereal boxes do I googled recycled cereal box ideas and I found a tote bag idea which was cute.

I cut off the flaps at the top, drew 2 ovals and cut out the handles.

I changed it a bit as the kids didn’t have the patience to cover it with ripped paper so I found some Christmas wrapping paper and wrapped it like a present.

I used glue to hold it in place and some sticky tape. I sliced through the handles and sticky taped the paper around the handles.

My husband was pressed. Usually he tells me how I can improve the craft but he didn’t thus time. Granted I didn’t give him a close up look but he was tricked into thinking it was a real gift bag.

Oh i scored the sides to help fold them in.

The kids cut out pictures from wrapping and decorated the boxes. Perhaps stickers next time? Now the kids think they are their bags. I’ll have to make more for gift wrapping and hide from the kids. They take a little bit of
battering but Emily fills them to bursting and do her handles are getting a little squished..

Junk mail Christmas tree

I found the tutorial on Pinterest ( where else?). Will post link later. Had a woolworths brochure. Started folding, a little bit of glue to keep the flaps up and voila.

When the kids saw it they said Wow! I asked them if they knew what it is. Alexander said volcano, Emily said a mountain. I said its a Christmas tree and they said where’s the decorations?

Failure and successful experiments

Today we were supposed to go on a play date with two boys from Alexander’s class next year. One we know vaguely through pre school and the other we don’t. Unfortunately Alexander ran an unexplained fever all day yesterday and though it is down today it is fluctuating so I decided to stay home much to the disappointment of the children.

Alexander asked his father how we talk so I thought an experiment about sound would be good. I had bought a book with simple science experiments.

All we needed was a glass, a balloon, scissors, sticky tape and sugar. All if which we had at home.

You cut off the neck of the balloon, stretch over the glass opening and sticky tape down to retrain stretch ones. We had fun taping the drum we had made.

You then sprinkle salt and sugar on top.

Then we are supposed to hum 10cm from the glass and the sugar moves.

But it didn’t. We hummed high and low, far and near (but then our breath moved the sugar). When we tapped the glass the sugar jumped.

I was trying to explain vibrations and ripples travelling so I filled a bowl with water and we dropped stones in to try and see the ripples travelling out.

So we haven’t been too successful yet. I did some googling and came up with another idea. I pulled out our drum which had a plastic skin, sprinkled rice and them hummed with my lips pressed up against the drum.

Cheers! We got dancing rice!

When I asked the kids to rate the experiment, thumbs up or down they said thumbs up. I as the adult thought thumbs down because it failed but they reminded me it is the process that is fun not necessarily the end result.

One other thing we tried was talking through a balloon to feel the vibrations on our lips.

Surprise success

I am following along from my failure yesterday to a success. This has actually happened 3 times now but I only remembered to take photos the third time.

I was making sausage in paper for the kids. Their name for skinless sausages wrapped in puff pastry. I had all this egg left over and I hate wasting it so I tipped it into a silicon cupcake case and put it in the oven with the sausages.

The surprising things were:
1: it puffed up and looked like a sweet cake.
2: Emily ate it! Emily will eat soft or hard boiled eggs but not scrambled eggs. I think she liked the novelty of it.

So the other day my kids requested eggs for dinner so instead of dipping eggs I made egg cakes and AGAIN Emily ate it. First she wanted to eat them out if their cases but when Alexander tipped his out, she did as well.
I mixed 4 eggs and a splash of milk together. this filled 5 cases. I cooked them for 10 mins at 180*, then I sprinkled some cheese on and cooked a few more minutes.

Then Alexander requested them again and I thought I would push the boundaries.

I mixed the cheese, milk and eggs together and added frozen corn and peas. I overlooked them for 20 minutes as I was cooking something else. They just tasted a bit rubbery but otherwise fine.

I think I might make them for breakfast tomorrow sans veggies.

Classic fail

We were invited to an 18th birthday party for our babysitter. She is also one of the Sunday school teachers. So I wanted to give her a present from the kids and do a test drive for the presents we are going to make for the kids’ preschool teachers.
I did a google search and found that if I use permanent markets and bake the mugs in the oven they should set.
I bought some coloured markers which said they wrote on smooth surfaces and gave the kids a mug each and they had a great time drawing- making up stories as they drew.

After they were finished I put them in the oven, turned it on, baked for half an hour them let cool down in the oven.
I wiped it with a wipe and the writing came off so I baked them again that evening and cross fingers.
Oh we’ll it’s the thought that counts.

There are two ways this failed.
The first is probably the reason. I didn’t thoroughly clean the mugs and so the surface was not clean to take the markets.
The second was perhaps the wrong markers. I found instructions for using sharpies so I thought any permanent markets would do. Perhaps I need to find ceramic markers?

Here are a few sites that I found.  I love the bowl using a stencil and a sharpie.

sharpie dinnerware

How to bake a mug

I also put in a bag of premixed dry ingredients and labelled it with instructions of what to add and how to make a cake on a mug as part of her present.

I looked at a few sites and some people had put a lot of thought into it – one site even said 2Tb of egg – 1 egg being too much 😉

Here’s one recipe – I haven’t made it myself yet.

Too early for Christmas crafts

Christmas angel using foot prints and hand prints

Not my original idea. A friend of mine said she had seen it on the Internet and suggested to me.

Easily done with some ink pads. Emily stepped on it then on the paper.

Then we inked up her hands and I turned the paper each way to make it easier.

I did the face and hair. Next time I will get her to do it but we just testing it out.

My friend made a reindeer using hands for antlers and the foot for the face.

No drip ice blocks

I buy the create-a-jelly packet and sometimes I use gelatine basically I make jelly and pour them in the moulds and then freeze. Perfect for summer.

1 cup of boiling water
1 packet of jelly mix
Mix
Add 200 ml of juice
I like to use up the natural juice that comes with our canned fruit.
Pour in molds and freeze.
Easy!
Or I use 1T of gelatin
Dissolve in 100ml hot water
Add 300ml juice

Love it