Cascarones on The Daily Buzz!!

Many thanks to my good friend in Nashville for pointing this out...

http://www.thedailybuzz.com.au/2013/03/15-easter-crafts-foods-activities/

 

 

 

 And then scroll down to #15...

What's that? A link to my 2008 Cascarones tutorial! Awesome!!

And, crazy! How did they ever find it?

I really hate to admit that this is the one year since 2008 that I actually haven't saved eggs for Cascarones. Ugh! Total slacker! We live in a fairly heavy Hispanic area and found some pretty great pre-made ones at Shoppers Food Warehouse last year. So, we're counting on that again this year. Next year, though, I'll be back on my game. And I'm vowing now to write a new tutorial with better pictures. Here's a slightly better post I wrote for The DC Moms last year!

Happy cracking!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Class Valentines

I've long wanted to get in on the melted crayon mold fun that's all over Pinterest and the blogosphere and we've finally done it for Valentine's Day!

Lucas has been saving up broken crayons all school year (and perhaps breaking a few on purpose--that silly kid!) and I purchased a silicone heart pan. The hardest part was peeling all the little papers and after that it was a blast to arrange the crayons in the hearts, bake and admire the creations!

Then I discovered this awesome free printable from The Long Thread. They say "Have a colorful Valentine's Day" at the bottom! I'm the queen of enjoying all the wonderful free printables that designers share on their blogs. My trick is to upload them to Staples.com and have them printed in color on card stock. It's cheap and so easy--plus the quality is always great.

Over the past few days, Lucas has been writing his classmates names and his name, then we taped the card to the front of little treat bags, dropped in a crayon heart, tied them up and viola! Fun Valentine's for his class!

 

I'm pretty sure we're all looking forward to having enough crayon nubs to make another batch!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Gift Idea: Seed Bombs

Last weekend, Lucas and I spend about 30 minutes making seed bombs to give out as Christmas gifts. It was inexpensive and fun and I think he and I are both excited to make them again soon.

There are numerous tutorials around the interwebs and you can even buy them on Etsy, but they are so fun to make, I can't imagine buying them!

  The ingredients are simple:

• Air dry terracotta Crayola clay (I also read that if you have clay soil, you an dig down and use that. We do have clay soil but didn't want to get that DIY in our first attempt!

• Potting soil or compost (we used potting soil we had on hand)
• Seeds -- native perennials are best; we used a perennial wildflower mix
• Water

Our process was highly scientific: we combined several small garden spade scoops of potting soil and clumps of clay until it looked like about 2/3 soil and 1/3 clay. We added enough water to get it all nice and squishy (maybe one cup?). Then we dumped in the packet of seeds.


Next comes the fun part when you're a 6yo boy -- squishing it all up!

I believe it was right about now that Lucas proclaimed, "Dirt is my middle name!"

Once it was sufficiently squished and mixed together we formed round balls. You can make these any size you want. Most of ours were a little smaller than a ping pong ball.

I carefully loaded them up on a sturdy piece of cardboard and put them on the only flat surface in our house that is safely out of reach of Nathaniel "hurricane is my middle name" -- the top of the fridge! Within about 48 hours they were dry and completely hard.

Warning: You may want to let anyone in your house who can reach the flat surface you are drying your seed bombs on that they are little balls of dirt, clay and seeds.

Abel -- who knew we had done this project but had not been around for it -- mistook the seed bombs for truffles (which I've never made in my life!) and apparently took a big bite. I SO wish I had been there to see it! I think I laughed harder than I have in a year when he told me that story!



I packaged them up six per bag with cute labels that said:

Seed Bombs -- Handmade by Lucas 

Drop a seed bomb anywhere you think needs a little beautification!

Ingredients: Potting soil, clay, perennial wildflower seeds


It's my understanding from reading other tutorials that the clay protects the seeds from being eaten by birds or other animals. The clay will continue to protect the seeds until they sprout and break the clay apart on their own. We made about 30 this round and will be giving them all away, but I think it would be fun to make a batch for us to keep in the car and use for guerrilla beautification!


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Thankful

In my on-going quest to Do Creative Things and in line with my love of mailing written correspondence, I was inspired by these beautiful Thanksgiving printables by Oana Befort on Sincerely, Kinsey which I first saw on How About Orange. (Whew! I think that credits everyone!)


I even used some scrapbook paper to make custom envelopes for them!

I only ended up actually writing and mailing three and I also hid a special one for Abel to find when he opened his laptop one day. It was a fun project and, although I have a million people that I'm grateful for, I was happy to send the three out that I did.

And, of course, you don't really need Thanksgiving to express gratitude so I'll keep the extra copies close by.

Dear Readers, I'm so thankful for you, too!



Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

More DIY Art

In my on-going effort to follow my New Year Resolution to "Do creative things" I created another little DIY art project. I'm thrilled with the results!

It all started with my leftover and VERY out-of-date blogger business cards. I'm guessing I ordered this set in 2006. They're Moo mini cards and I love them. I wasn't using them anymore because my contact info and blog info are both out of date but I couldn't bear to throw them away because they are so gorgeous -- look at those lovely back designs!

What to do???

On my last trip to Ikea, I bought a simple black frame thinking that I could do something with it and the Moo cards. Last Sunday I had a few moments to myself so I pulled out the frame, cards and glue and got to work.

I experimented with placing the cards over the white mat, thinking they would make an interesting border for a photo.

Then I decided to make the cards the feature.

I cut a piece of card stock to be the same size as the mat and using very light pencil, outlined the opening. Then I got to work gluing overlapping the cards to fill up the space:

And here's the final product!

 

 It's hanging in our bedroom next to our wedding photo. (Look at that good-looking and YOUNG couple!!)




















I love it!








Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

DIY Update

Last May I wrote about the DIY project in our dining room

Geesh, what a terrible picture! Sorry!

Since then, this frame has become one of my favorite things in the house. And, it gets a ton of compliments. I changed out the paperclips for teeny tiny clothespins and really enjoy updating the items on display.

I'm no good at keeping up with regular segments on this blog, but I thought it would be fun to photograph the frame every now and then to see how it changes.

Here's what it looks like today:

Top L to R:
An easy tissue paper flower
Wedding invitation
Beautiful handmade baby card that I recently re-discovered.
Wedding invitation
Back of an old Moo business card

Middle L to R:
Adorable photo of the boys from the Instax Mini I got Abel for Christmas (such a fun camera to have, BTW)
Photo booth photos of Abel and me from a wedding

Bottom L to R:
Original art by Nathaniel
Instax photo of Abel and me on NYE
Family photo from an incredible vista in Cameron County, PA -- we could see four different mountain ranges!




Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

The Sand Box

At some point over the past 12 or so years, I mentioned to Abel that when I was growing up my family had a big tractor tire as a sandbox.

I have very fond memories of that sandbox -- losing and rediscovering Star Wars characters in its depths, no matter how grubby the middle sand was, still being able to dig into pure white sand inside the rim -- and Abel got completely hooked on the concept.

You'd be surprised, though, how hard it is to find a big, used tractor tire.

A few months ago, Abel was out at a sod farm buying some sod for our backyard hilltop sanctuary (more on that later!) and he noticed they had a handful of old tractor tires stacked in a barn. How much for one of those? he asked. Take one! they replied.

So a few days later Abel bribed a friend and his pick-up with some beer (consumed post-drive!) and brought the tire home. These are two strong guys and it was an effort for them to get it off the truck and rolled into the yard. It's one big, heavy tire!

Abel dug out a donut for the tire to sit in, put some weed cover fabric down, and filled it up with sand.

He even built this handy cover out of wood from another project:

And this little guy fell in love. The first weekend I found him laying--face down!!--in the sand. He can't get enough.

Many toys have already been lost and re-found in its depths. I wonder if, come September, there will still be clean sand to be found around the edges....



Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!