Big Bad Wolf Cake

Mr. T's birthday was right on the heels of our coming back from a family vacation and just a few days before Halloween. It was a crazy time around our house and so I just wanted to do something small, low key and just family to celebrate his turning the big 2. At almost the last minute we decided to call see if some family friends wanted to join in the fun and so that put the pressure on to do a cake. Now if you read this blog you will notice for one that theres not alot a posting going on but also in the few post I do have  that we have kind of a family tradition of trying to do great cakes. I have to preface that by saying it's not that we are great bakers or cake makers but that we have cake envy and always want to try and do something new and challening. My husband and I collaborate and always make the cake thing happen and by some miracle we are always smiling and happy with the results, even if some times they are less than perfect. This year was a bit of a challenge in that since the last cake efforts we have discovered that we as a family have gluten issues. The kids and I were tested and things have not been the same around here when it comes to sweet baked treats. For this cake I used the chocolate gluten free mix from King Arthur, to my surprise is was very good. Moist, tender with good chocolate flavor and none of the grit you get in alot of store bought GF mixes. For the icing I used Martha Stewarts recipe chocolate ganache - it was the first time I had made a ganache. It is now my go to for quick chocolate icing. So easy and it looked so professional. I can't take full credit for the design, I was hard pressed to do a big bad wolf cake from scratch and I was inspired by a cake I spied online wolf cake inspiration. 

Noodle Necklace

Today as I was cooking up T a big freezable batch of homemade spagettio's I starting wondering if she would be to young for some good old noodle jewelry making. I took a handful of the noodles I was using and got out some watered down paints and set her up for some pasta painting. She had such a great time. She put all the noodles on a metal skewer which was a great exercise for her fine motor skills and used a small paintbrush to color the noodles. After drying she applied glitter glue to some and she finished off the project by stringing them on some pink nylon cord. She was so proud of her necklace and I was so impressed that she tackled this project all by herself and the result was just adorable.

Noodle Necklace Materials:
Pasta Noodles
Water based paints
Glitter Glue
Nylon Thread

Homemade Spagetti O's
1 can tomato sauce
1 cup pasta rings
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cut fine diced or pureed carrots
1/2 can drained and finely chopped garbanzo beans
1/4 tsp garlic powder
dash salt
1/4 cup milk
1/4 grated cheese

In a sauce pan combine tomato sauce, veggie broth, carrot puree, salt, garlic powder stir until combined and hot. Add cooked pasta, beans, milk and cheese cook until heated through. Can increase recipe to make big freezer batches holds up and is good in freezer for 2 months.

Rogue Pirate

Here's the next installment of the summer of costumes. Just now posting this project from two weeks back.Tomorrow is castles, prince & princess day and I've yet to start sewing or have any clue of what I will throw together. I think I am procrastinating on this one because I have always sworn to try and steer T away from the whole "princess" thing and encourage her to indulge in more "girl" esteem rewarding role play. But I am finding that this issue is alot like me trying to steer her away from junk food, sugar and bad nutritional influences I can't help to to feel like... the girl needs an occasional brownie and just maybe an occasional princess.

All princess talk aside, here is T as my rogue...not so rogue pirate. She really loved this one and has worn it several times since I made it. We have a hand me down ship play set in the backyard which is perfect for her to act our her pirate daydreams. I even managed to drag Dad into this one - I had him stencil the skull and cross bones on to the vest. So pleased that this was my first attempt at a pair of pants, simple yes they were but I felt a huge sense of accomplishment at tackling something that I had a bit of new sewist fear of. No patterns just used a old pair of pants and an old vest as a go by. Again, not a lot of finishing on this costume. The pant bottoms and felt on the jacket left rough making for a quick 2.5 hour total project. I had all the material except the red striped fabric for the hat on hand so it was almost entirely made up of scraps.

Still missing some pirate accompaniments, I still need to make up a treasure map,some kind of soft sword for swashbuckling(very important according to T)and decorate a paper towel tube for locating other pirate ships in the distance.

Materials:
1.5 yards cotton for pants
1 yard of felt for vest
black bias tape
black felt & elastic for eye patch

Chocolate Pretzels

A very crafty mommy friend of mine always has these addictive pretzel treats out when we come over. She swore they were easy to make and that her little monkey loves to help out making these sweet treats so I thought we would give them a go. She was right, easy, low mess and super fun for the kiddos. Only three ingredients you can't go wrong, we used matchstick pretzels, quick melt chocolate and course sanding sugar. The entire project minus the time spent eating and munching and laughing along the way only took about 10 minutes. First we laid the pretzels out on some wax paper(makes for easy clean up), microwaved the chocolate in a glass bowl for 60 seconds then put the chocolate into a squeezy bottle and drizzled over the pretzels. Finally Tess sprinkled the sugar over the tops and we let harden for about 30 minutes before eating. Tess is so excited to show Daddy that she made "prentzels" for him - what a treat.

Easter Dress

I have been wanting to try to sew one of those pillowcase style dresses for some time but just haven't gotten around to doing it. I've was actually worried that once I made one of these dresses I would get pillowcase dress crazy and then every photo of Tess from now until she went to college would be of her in one these. But with Easter right around the corner I thought it would be the perfect quick sew dress project. After searching for a tutorial I found one that looked pretty simple at Prudent Baby and thought I would give it a go. The dress is linen and cotton and even though it's not the most festive of dresses I am still referring to it as the Easter Dress. Last years Easter dress was black with small white dots so by my standards this ended up being practically a carnival of color. The whole dress from cutting fabric to completion look less than 2 hours and just as I feared I can't wait to make another one. They make the perfect summer dress and when the weather starts to turn you can layer t-shirts under them and wear them as tunics.

Materials:
Fabric
Bias Tape
Twill Tape for the tie

Salt Painting

My new mission is to try to get more creative time in with T, she is like a sponge and wants to be trying her hand at new experiences everyday. Developmentally she seems to be transitioning from abstract doodles to more representational drawing so when I saw this cool craft over at Family Fun magazine I thought it would be a perfect fit. I was amazing at how she was grasping the concept of following the lines and enjoying a bit of structure, actually waiting and having fun at each step in the process. To do this project at home you need only a few things that you probably already have on hand. First step is to take some stiff card stock or you can reuse cut down cardboard boxes, we used watercolor paper that I cut in half. Next squeeze or draw out with regular Elmers/craft glue a design on the paper. Tess made her first ones pretty simple but once she saw that she only painted on glue she made the next ones more elaborate. After the design is done place the paper in a shallow pan and sprinkle with course salt until the paper is covered then shake off any excess. While the glue is still wet start dabbing wet watercolor paint onto the salted design trying not to drag the brush through the glue. Like magic the wet color spreads as the salt absorbs the paint. We tried regular Mortons table salt and course kosher salt and got better results the with latter. We also found that the more wet the paint the better the leaching of the color on to the design. Make sure to document the artwork because once it dries it tends to flake off and could make for messy storage.

Materials:
Watercolor paper or Card Stock
Craft Glue
Course Salt
Shallow Pan
Watercolors
Paintbrushes

Bath Towel

Long time no post. Sorry we have just been busy around here and finding time to craft is a luxury that mommy is going without these days. So here is a quick one I was able to pull off before the kiddos even woke up on Sunday am. T was in need of a new towel and when I looked online at the prices I was amazed at what companies charge for toddler towels - highway robbery if you ask me. After looking at some of her old baby towels it didn't seem like it would be all that difficult to sew one up, basically the towel construction is only three long seams plus a little extra work to add on some fun details. I purchased a 100% cotton standard bath towel for $3.99 and a hand towel for $1.99 from Target on sale. Sorry I didn't have time to completely document the process for a tutorial but here is a link to the basic sew online http://www.makeandtakes.com/easy-hooded-bath-towel. I promise this is a super easy project well worth the time and small investment. Since I've made another one in orange that was a little chicken as a gift for my nephew Zade and plan to make one for baby Theo. This just might be my go to gift project for all of T's friends.