Finger Painting Trays

All three of my kids will tell you that they love finger painting. They love to use their hands to create masterpieces. We have been doing this almost every night.

When we painted in the past, I put the paint on small paper plates. We seemed to be going through a lot of paper plates, so I tried to come up with a more resourceful way to go about this process.

We got some cheap tins from the dollar store and turned them into the kids' individual paint trays. I now have room to place many colors in this tin and the kids can do what they want with the colors. If they want to mix colors, they can. If they want to use them separately, there is plenty of room to avoid mixing.

I don't even bother washing out the tray when the kids are done. (The tin is becoming a masterpiece now too :) )

Banana Chocolate Muffins

My kids love banana bread.  I love baking, but I hate doing all of the dishes. This recipe takes care of all of those things. I found this recipe on Pinterest (http://myfriendsbakery.ca/blog/banana-muffins/)and altered it a little to fit my family's tastes.

You only need to use one bowl for this entire recipe.

Start by mashing three bananas in a bowl.

Add:
5 1/2 Tablespoons of melted butter
1 slightly beaten egg
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Mix until just combined. Be careful not to over mix.

Scoop into 12 cupcake liners and bake at 375 for 18 minutes.

Place pan on a rack for about 5 minutes when done baking. Remove cupcakes from pan and enjoy.

 

 

 

 

Taco Dip

 

 

Ingredients:

1 pound of taco meat

1 can of refried beans

1 cup of sour cream

2 teaspoons taco seasoning

lettuce

tomato

shredded cheddar cheese

 

Spread platter with refried beans. (You might not have to use the whole can, depending on the size of your platter.)

Mix sour cream and taco seasoning together in a bowl

 

Spread on top of refried beans

Sprinkle taco meat on top of sour cream.

Add shredded lettuce and chopped tomato.

Sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese. Refrigerate until ready to serve. (Olives are a good optional topping on this as well.) Eat dip with Doritos or tortilla chips.

 

Three-ring Binder Dollhouse

 

 

I came across the idea of a three-ring binder dollhouse while browsing through Pinterest. I decided to take that idea and expand upon it.  I wanted to add a "little boy" touch to the house for my son. So...we started by making the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room and then added the garage and farm. Since then we have added a salon and grocery store. We have plans for a laundry room and kids' bedrooms. The room ideas are endless!

 

Start by picking out your "wallpaper" colors for each room. This is just scrapbook paper cut to fit the binder. For a couple of the rooms, I did one color on the top and another on the bottom. Put modge podge (or a mixture of glue and water) on the binder and the back of the scrapbook paper. Place the scrapbook paper on the binder. 

 

To cover the rings of the binder, I placed fabric through the rings. They resemble curtains. To get the fabric to stay on the binders, I sewed a slot where the top and bottom rings of the binder are. Slide the fabric through rings.  

Then I went online and found images for each room. I just searched in Google for things like shower, vanity, bathroom pictures, end tables, closet, clocks, lamps, tool bench, window seats, tv entertainment center, etc. Print the pictures off and arrange them on the scrapbook paper. Place modge podge on the back of each of the images and place on the "wallpaper".

Next plaster modge podge over the entire page. It will look glossy when you first apply, but when it dries it will look as one picture. All of the images will be sealed on each page.

 

Other rooms:

 

The Garage

 

The Bedroom

 (The bed in this bedroom is made from wood scraps. I glued a small piece of wood to a larger piece to resemble a headboard.  I hot glued a piece of fabric over the entire bed. )

 

The Living Room

 

(The couch and chair are pieces of thick cardboard with fleece hotglued to the cardboard.)

 

 

 

The Farm

 

The Salon

 

The Kitchen

The Grocery Store

 My kids are constantly changing the arrangement of the dollhouse. These are some of the recent set-ups. The best part about this dollhouse is the binders can be folded up when they are done playing and placed on a bookshelf. We put all of the furniture in a little tote that gets placed on the shelf with the binders.



Dice Game for the Whole Family

My babysitter found this game idea and passed it along to my family. We had a great time tonight creating individual masterpieces.

 

Start with two dice. Place paper around one of them. I drew a different shape on each side of the die. (Circle, square, rectangle, triangle, star, straight line)

 

Each member of the family got a blank sheet of white paper. One person rolled the dice. Each family member had to draw the amount of shapes the dice showed. For instance, on the picture above, each of us would have drawn 5 circles on our sheet of paper. The shapes could be any size and anywhere on the paper. The next family member took a turn rolling the dice. After about 15-20 rolls, we decided to check out each other's pictures.

 

This is what we came up with...

 This is a great game to work on creativity, shapes, and counting. A great family game!

 

 

Cinnamon Rolls

 

2 teaspoons of yeast

1 1/4 cups warm water

3 Tablespoons butter

3 Tablespoons Sugar

2 Tablespoons dry milk powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

 

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 Tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

 

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup corn syrup

 

 

Start by dissolving the yeast in the warm water in a mixing bowl. Add the butter, sugar, milk powder, salt, and 2 cups of flour. Mix it with a wooden spoon until the mixture is somewhat smooth.

 

Slowly add the remaining flour. When all the flour is incorporated, knead the dough for about 6 minutes. I use the hook attachment on my mixer for this step. If you don't have a mixer, you can knead it by hand.

 

Place in a greased bowl. Cover the bowl with a towel and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour. (To create a warm place, set your oven to 170 degrees for 30 seconds. Turn the oven off and place the bowl inside the oven.)

 

 

When the dough is doubled, punch it down and place on a floured surface. Roll the dough out to resemble a rectangle. (Just get as close to a rectangle as possible.) Spread the softened butter on the dough. You can use a spoon or your hand to do this.

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a bowl. Sprinkle the mixture on top of the butter. Roll the dough, starting from a long side.

 

Cut the dough in half first. Then turn each half into six pieces.

 

Meanwhile, mix the brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup in a small saucepan.

 

Heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Pour into a greased 9x13" pan. Spread with spatula to cover the entire pan.

 Place the 12 cut rolls on top of the sugar/butter/corn syrup mixture.  Cover the rolls and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.

When doubled, place in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.

After removing rolls from the oven, turn the pan over onto a cookie sheet.

 

Mix about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 Tablespoon of milk in a bowl. Drizzle this glaze on top of the warm cinnamon buns.

Rain Makers

We have been getting a lot of rain the past few days, so the boys and I started searching for crafts related to rain. Now, we don't need any more rain, but the boys thought the idea of making a rain maker was pretty neat.

We got an empty paper towel tube and a smaller cardboard tube we had saved with our other crafting supplies.  I took the ends off a box of Fiber One brownies and cut out circles to be placed on the ends of the cardboard tubes.

Tape one of the circles to the end of the cardboard tube.

Have the kids pick out a piece of construction paper to be glued around the tube.

Fill the tube with about 1/2 cup of rice. (You could do beans or pasta as well.) A couple of the posts I saw said to add a long cylinder of tinfoil to the mix. We just added the rice. The boys really just wanted a noisemaker. :)

Tape the other circle disc to the top of the cardboard tube.

 Our original plan was to decorate the paper with stickers and markers, but the boys remembered they got cool duct tape in their Easter baskets, so they used that instead.