A Bushel of Apples to Play With

 
I loved my Mom’s crocheted apples so much that I had to make up some polymer clay ones!

These were so quick and easy to make.  Then, I let my kids play with them!

After I made my tiny apples, I made up this paper to use them with. 
I keep adding to my list of manipulatives for my children to play with.  There are so many ways for the kids to play with these.  They can sort them by color, do pattern work, use the above sheet and sort by numbers, etc.  I love this kind of stuff!
Rebecca

I'm joining the following fun parties; Its A Blog Party, Blue Cricket Design, Sew Much Ado, Just A Girl, ABC and 123,

Football Calzones

With all the great football action going on I figured many of you would be in need of some fun Football food.  Here are directions on how to make Football calzones.  We posted this, along with some football crafts to make, for superbowl 2 years ago!  Enjoy!
Rebecca

Pumpkin Pie Spiced Pumpkins!

I love Autumn (though anyone that knows me, knows that Winter is my favorite season)!  I get jonesing (yes, that is a real word…to me!) for Pumpkin Pie Spiced…anything!  So, I looked in my cupboard to see what I could come up with.  This is what I made up….Delicious! 

I took Puff Pastry, let it thaw, and then cut out Autumn shapes.  The only two Autumn Cookie Cutters I had were pumpkins (in 5 different sizes!) and a leaf (which is what I was really wanting, but that’s for another day’s post).
 
I made a few variations of these.  The first one I made like an apple pie pocket.  Easy peasy, I tell you!  This is a take off of one of my favorite desserts from Anjeanette.  Cut an apple into tiny pieces and put some in the middle of your cut out puff pastry pumpkin.  Then, sprinkle on some brown sugar.  If you are totally naughty (and I was) then, add a drizzle of caramel.  Top with some tiny pats of butter (I’m talking dime size or smaller and totally thin like a dime).
 
Add another Puff Pastry pumpkin on top and seal the edges.  Then, spread a thin egg wash (egg white and tiny bit of water) on the top and sprinkle some more brown sugar on top! 
Cook @400 for about 10 minutes.
Aren’t they nummy looking?
 
Inside shot of the Apple Pie Pockets…just because.

Other variations:
-Cut cute Jack-O-Lantern face into the Puff Pastry and Bake as is, to be layered later!
-Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top of the egg wash.
-My Favorite:  Sprinkle Pumpkin Pie Spice on top of the Egg wash.

OK.
Here’s where it gets even better!  Slice one of these Pumpkin Pie Spice topped Pumpkins in half so you have 2 pumpkins (not 2 halves of pumpkins, if you know what I mean).
Now, let some Vanilla Ice Cream (don’t we all have this on hand?) soften.  Then, stir in more Pumpkin Pie Spice.  Put this mixture into a ziplock baggie and return it back to the freezer to firm it back up a little (as it melts quickly).
Snip the end off of the ziplock baggie and basically frost the bottom half of your Pumpkin Pie Spiced Puff Pastry Pumpkin with this delicious mixture.  Put the top back on the pumpkin.

Refreeze the whole thing.
Eat
Maybe save some for the kids.  Mine LOVED these!
The very top picture on this post was where I let the ice cream mixture harden a bit more and so I got a thicker layer of it, this was a gooood thing!

Don’t forget to use your scraps!
 
Use the leftover Puff Pastry scraps to fill in some mini muffin pans.  Then add some apple chunks, brown sugar, caramel (again, only if you are naughty), and pats of butter.  Bake same as directed above.  These are totally quick, easy, cute, and YUMMY bite-sized apple pies! 
Seriously, to die for!
Rebecca
ps 11 uses of parenthesis is NOT overkill.  It’s giving extra tidbits for everyone’s entertainment!

We're joining the fun in some parties:  This Blessed Nest, Under The Table and Dreaming,

Pumpkin Pie Spice Play Dough

I run a daycare. I have crafts and foods every day that pertain to a theme for the month. Yesterday I tried a new one and I had to share it! I absolutely LOVE pumpkin pie. Yum. I also make a delish Pumpkin Cream Cheese Crescent Roll* that is to die for. Really, anything sprinkled with pumpkin pie spice entices me. So, when I remembered a recipe that I had for Pumpkin Spice Play Dough, I just had to make it. Wow, it is fantastic. It really does smell great, and totally looks like you are playing with pumpkin pie. Awesome! We will be playing with this right up until Thanksgiving!

Here’s the super easy recipe:

2 C Flour

1 C Salt

4 tsp. Cream of Tartar

3 tsp pumpkin-pie spice (I did 4…cuz I wanted to!)

2 C Water

2 TBL Vegetable Oil

Red and Yellow Food Coloring (the more the better!)

Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Stir on low heat until mixture starts forming a ball and will pull away from the sides. Let cool. Enjoy.

Rebecca

Obviously you could eat this dough and not die, but with that much salt, I can’t imagine it would taste very good!

*

Easy Peasy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Crescent Roll Recipe:

Refrigerator Crescent Rolls

Cream Cheese

Pumpkin Pie Spice

Orange sugar or sprinkles

Take Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and unroll them. Spread Cream Cheese on them. I used to love Cream Cheese and would add a thick layer. Now my thighs are begging for a thinner layer, and that tastes great too! Sprinkle with Pumpkin Pie Spice (again, to your liking...my liking is a LOT). Then, roll them up and cook them as directed. For extra bling, sprinkle the tops with orange sugar or sprinkles. I actually do this last step to differentiate between crescent rolls with the pumpkin pie cream cheese filling, and those without (sadly some members of my family do not like cream cheese...what are they thinking?!)!

Technorati Tags: pumpkin spice,play dough,homemade,pumpkin,cream cheese,refrigerator rolls,crescent,recipe

Heartfelt Thanksgiving Letters

I love November! What a great reminder to be grateful for all we have in our lives. This bucket is filled with scrolls of cute autumn stationary that I printed up on my computer. I love quick, easy, but with meaning. This project is all of that.

I was raised with parents who instilled thankfulness in us children, by their examples. My parents really are super, wonderful, giving people who I am so very thankful for. I would not be able to enjoy my life if it were not for them teaching me to be happy in the here and now. I really do love my life, even with all the chaos and downtimes. I have a list that is too long to list, of the many things in my life that I am so very thankful for. I am blessed to have the best family. This starts with my children, my parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, nieces, nephews, and goes on and on! I have wonderful best friends who truly are amazing people. All of these people inspire me to be a better person. They celebrate with me in the good times and support me in the bad. What more can I ask for then this? Thank you to all of you!

I am loving Anjeanette’s project of activities to do with my kids. What a great twist on the thanksgiving tradition of being thankful. I also love Katrina’s tree, and do something similar with my kids. I like her twist of the leaves falling off the tree instead of being added to the tree as I have done in the past.

This project is about sharing with others the reasons that we are thankful for them. I first filled out one of these for each of my children. I was very specific about all the things about them that make me thankful to have them in my life. My oldest’s independence is something I totally admire, the next is so laid back and easy to love, while my youngest has such a fantastic energetic imagination. These are just 3 of the specific things I listed for them. I’ve done this activity before with my children. We left the scrolls as place holders on the thanksgiving table that year. This year after we finish filling these out we will hand deliver them and then mail the rest to the out of town people in our lives that are special to us. I want my kids to think through not just who they are thankful for. But this will help them see why we love those people so much.

I wish everyone Happy Holidays and hope you are taking the time to see all that you have to be thankful for as well!

Rebecca

Technorati Tags: Thankful,notes,idea,thanksgiving,childrens project,lesson

Halloween Party

Welcome to our Halloween Party. First, set the tone by decorating your entrance. Can you tell that we enjoy Halloween? ;) Anjeanette has this banner and sign that she puts our for her entrances.

Next, decorate inside of your house. I love these dollar store buckets! Just nest a glass bowl inside the plastic bucket (as the dry ice will melt the plastic bucket). Add dry ice and water and you have the most fun decorations. Seriously, we can’t get enough dry ice throughout the house. For decorations don't forget to fill your crocheted pumpkins with candy corn! And if you made this table runner and banner, or this hand towel, make sure they are out!

These are crafts that the kids made, and the top bucket was one of the cute buckets that Anjeanette gave us when she “Boo’d” us. I just filled that bucket with treats for the kids to go home with (spider rings and other Halloween trinkets, you could also include pencil toppers).

A MUST have for us is the meal in the pumpkin! Oh it’s sooooo yummy. Not only do you cook the meal in the pumpkin, you then take chunks of the pumpkin with your serving. Delish! I think this is my favorite tradition of Halloween. Other Halloween foods are dry ice root beer, skeleton cookies, candy corn rice krispies, pumpkin cookies, white chocolate ghost suckers, apple pie spice drink, oreo cookie spiders, popcorn fingers, edible gross body parts, etc!

On to the games. This is my favorite. Dangling Donuts. Because who doesn’t need more food (especially highly sugared food) after our Halloween meal!?
All you do is get donuts (we get a variety). Tie a long piece of string onto each donut. Grab a dowel or long sturdy stick. Decide who is going to go against each other (don’t go against Anjeanette…she is the QUEEN of this game…that’s all I’m saying). Each person picks their own donut. Tie donuts on the dowel and go at it (without using your hands!). For our little kids we’ve let 3 go at a time, but otherwise we stick to 2 at a time. This is also best played outside as it leaves a mess below.

Another really fun game is this Pin The Hat On The Witch Game I made one year. I love variations of Pin The Tail On The Donkey. Don’t forget the other games like bobbing for apples (no pictures because I don’t want to show our kids)!

You could do this as place settings for the party (though this was what I had for my kids on the first day of October). I just printed out a pumpkin on orange paper and wrote out Happy Halloween _______ using my awesome Halloween fonts. That was for their placemat. Then they got Halloween cups to use all month, that were filled with Halloween pencils and toys. I also give them their Halloween shirt for the year, on the first day so that they can wear it the whole month long. These were shirts that I added beaded Halloween designs to.

The Gals here at Roots And Wings Co just love holidays and Halloween is right there at the top of the list. We have Halloween parties every year. We just had ours last weekend (thank you Anjeanette for hosting an awesome night). I am holding another one for the kids on Friday. So many things to do. I love doing the same things year after year, and I also love adding new things every year. Some things for the kiddos party will be tossing bean bags into my large cauldron and crafts. We always make Haunted Houses at this party (like gingerbread houses for Christmas except we use chocolate frosting to make it spookier, and you construct your house funny so it's a crooked haunted house). For crafts we will be making fingerprints in orange, green, and black. Then, we draw parts on them that turn them into witches, pumpkins, and monsters. I turn these into stickers and then the kids make Halloween cards for family using their fingerprint stickers.
Hope you enjoyed the party. For those of you that are still hosting a Halloween party this week (or for your fun Halloween night dinner) I hope this gives you some fun ideas to try.

Rebecca

Thankful Turkey Keepsake

Every year I try to come up with an activity to do with my boys that will reinforce being thankful.

In 2007, I cut out leaf shapes from colored paper and used my trusty Xyron machine to stick them to the back of my entry way door. Each day my son wrote something he was thankful for. I had great plans to put the leaves in a scrapbook to forever remember the sweet things he wrote. Unfortunately, they got really stuck to my door. It was a disaster. (I won’t say who, but someone I know, just may have left them on her door for …oh say a year like this because it was soooo hard to get them off…) BTW, this one said Family Time…before I tried to rip it off the door;)

Last year, I made these cute turkeys for my boys. They wrote what they were thankful for on a feather each day. It was nice but took a while to make two. They had their names on them and said “*name* is Thankful”. My boys really enjoyed this.

This year I wanted to make something we could use every day…and then year after year! I know! Brilliant.

My friend Melanie over at Sugardoodle…wait, have I told you that I grew up with Melanie? I did. I know her and love her. Anyway, she has this Thanksgiving Countdown she posted from Valerie Lee. There is a download that is full of a whole month of thankful activities to do with your kids, like “I am thankful for Grandparents. Call and tell them I love you, I am grateful for you. “ Sweet!! Some of the days don’t work for us because of food, but the rest are just awesome. I’m going to print them out and put one in each pocket on my little keepsake. My boys will take turns revealing their note. Next year my little one will be a little older. He should be able to write his thankful things down himself. We will probably go back to writing our own things we are thankful for next year.

Alright, let’s make one!

Right click on the above image and save as for the pattern.

I am going to assume you have a little sewing knowledge, otherwise this would be waaaay too long of a post;)

You need

• Fall colored felt for the feathers, beak and waddle.
• Brown felt for the turkey and coverage too.
• Peltex Pellon to make your hanging sturdy.
• clear vinyl for the pockets
• Ribbon or trim to hang it
• the rest of your typical sewing needs;)

I cut out 18 of the outer feathers and arranged them onto some Peltex Pellon. It is quite stiff and will hold the shape nicely.

Do the same with 12 of the skinnier feathers. Lay them out on some Peltex too.

Sew them down to the Peltex and trim around the tops of the feathers. Here both rows of feathers are done.

It is hard to see, but I cut out some vinyl to the shape of the feathers (like a rainbow) to make the pockets.

This stuff is tricky to sew on. I placed a piece of tape over where I wanted each seam to be. Each feather is going to be the guide for my pockets. I stitched between each feather to hold the vinyl down. I used a short stitch length to make sure that the tape would come off easily.

I cut some brown felt to cover the white Peltex that was showing on both rows of feathers.

Then I just stitched the layers together. I layered the top row of feathers on top of the bottom row of feathers and stitched around the arch. I then stitched the top curve of the already assembled turkey to the stack of feathers. I was careful not to sew any of the pockets closed. I hand stitched a little ribbon to the top so I could hang it.

Can you see how the vinyl made little pockets? I am slipping one of the countdown notes into each pocket. Double check to see if my math is correct…there should be 30 pockets/feathers, one for each day in November.

Enjoy! If you make one, I would really like to see it.

I am thankful for my family. Every day of my life, I am amazed at the two amazing little boys that are mine! I don’t know how or why they are mine, but I am so thankful that they are! I am thankful for my husband who works very hard to provide for us, and who adores us with every part of his being. I am thankful for my extended family too. What a bunch of crazies we are!

What are you thankful for? Do you have an activity that you do to reinforce what you are thankful for during November?

**ETA Peltex is a Pellon product. It is basically a thick stabilizer. You can sew it in or get one that is fusable on one or both sides. You purchase it where all the stabilizers are.

The vinyl I used is the thickest I could get. They sell it to use for stuff like table covers etc.

Anjeanette

Katrina’s Thankful Tree

There are lots of ideas out there on Thankful Trees. This is my take on it. There are two criteria for my family for activities like this that have a life lesson. One is that it has to be quick because my boys just won’t sit for something that is long and drawn out. Two, it has to be something that is easy to fit into our daily routine and not take a lot of time or energy to do. We have a hard enough time getting our Autistic son to sit down to do homework or anything that he perceives as “work.” I think (time will tell) that I have come up with something that will work for us.

What I used to make my thankful tree:

12x12 inch scrapbook paper for the background.

12x12 inch dark brown scrapbook paper for the tree

Poster board

Rub on letters

Silk leaves I purchased from the 99 cent only store

Mod Podge

Loctite Fun Tak Mounting Putty (to hold the leaves in place)

Sharpie pen to write on the leaves

12x12 picture frame that normally holds a collage of pictures my son took. (The collage and glass are behind my thankful tree)

I used a white colored pencil to sketch my tree on the back of the brown paper. When I was happy with my sketch, I cut it out.

I used mod Podge to glue the background paper to the poster board to help keep the paper from curling.

I then used Mod Podge to glue the tree onto the background paper. I used criss cross brush strokes so that it has a “painted” look when it’s dry. Kind of like when you look at an oil painting on canvas.

After the Mod Podge dried I placed my rub on letters on to the background paper. I used more Mod Podge to make sure the letters are protected.

I used mounting putty (the kind you use for posters that won’t mark the wall) to stick the leaves on my tree.

How we will use it:

Each day in November we will each take a leaf off the top of the tree and write what we are thankful for using only 1 or 2 words. We will then stick the leaves on the ground under the tree. By removing the leaves off the tree we are experiencing the passage of fall. By the time December 1st comes around all our leaves will have “fallen” off our tree and filled the “ground” with all that we are thankful for. Winter will be here. Since this hangs on the wall near our dinner table we will do this when we sit down for dinner.

We can reuse the background next year and simply add new silk leaves or cut some out of paper.

One idea of what to do with the leaves we use this year could be to scrapbook them on a two page layout with 4 smaller trees, one for each person in the family. Each tree would be labeled with our names and our Thankful leaves will go onto our trees. This way we can look back years from now and see what we were thankful for.

Katrina

I am thankful to my Sisters-in-law for inviting me to join them in making this blog. It has been so much fun. I am also thankful to all our friends who stop by every day to check out the things we have made and leave us a little note.

Technorati Tags: Thankful tree,thanksgiving,craft,tradition

{Adorable Gingerbread Skeleton Cookies}

Aaak! Sometimes I kill myself with cuteness/easy factor of things. This is both adorable AND easy. I mean easy. The hardest part is finding Gingerbread cookies in October. The last two years, the only place I have found these Pepperidge Farm Ginger Man cookies was at Target.

You only need two ingredients to make these! Gingerbread cookies which you can buy premade, and white frosting, cream cheese flavor just happens to be the favorite. ****Katrina here with my two cents..... If you plan to travel with these then using white chocolate would be the way to go.****

Place the icing in a ziploc baggie, then cut a SMALL hole on one of the bottom corners. Smaller is better because you can always make the hole bigger but you can't make it smaller. (Speaking from experience.) Then carefully ice the cookies to look like skeletons. I did the bodies first. Then I cut the hole a little bigger and did the heads.

Really this is my favorite picture…there are little fingers waiting to grab one of these up. Can you blame them? There are just too cute!

Oh my, the icing, the little sugar granuals, the gingerbread. These taste so good. Go ahead and dip the cookie right in the remainder of your icing, if you must. Actually, you MUST. Just try it. Or stick your finger in the tub. Don’t hold back. Get a spoon. (Ok this was added by Anjeanette and I can’t have this specific icing. Oh my, do I miss it.)

We did all of these fun things together with Rebecca and her kids. We had an early Halloween party in celebration of the start of October.

Erika (With Anjeanette butting in for fun.)

Dry ice Root Beer a fun and easy Halloween treat!

One of our most beloved family Halloween traditions is our homemade root beer. When the older siblings grew up in Utah, our elementary school had an amazing Halloween party. The kids would dress up and walk from class to class in their costumes. To this day that elementary school still has the Halloween parade. Another great part of the celebration was a party. The room mothers would always make root beer with dry ice! This is such a fond memory for us. And it couldn't be easier to make! You only need a few ingredients:

• Water
• Sugar
• Dry Ice (This is a little tricky and has to be handled with care, plus you have to be over 18 to buy it)
• Root Beer Concentrate (which you find at any grocery store)

Anything that comes with a big warning sign is going to provide for some good fun;) Our little disclaimer is that you need to read the warning and take heed of it. When you serve this up, you want to make sure you don’t serve up a piece of dry ice, no matter how fun it seems. No mouth burns for you!

A hundred years ago, when we were in elementary school we could buy the root beer flavoring in a powder packet right next to the Kool-aid. But now we are only able to find it easily in the baking area as concentrate.

In a large bowl, mix together the water, root beer concentrate and the sugar (there are plenty of recipes online, although you can just add ingredients to taste as well Here is a good resource we found with a recipe) You can use this as an exercise in chemistry if your kids are geeky like ours;)

We mixed our root beer in a large punch bowl. We placed it carefully into a large black cauldron to get a more Halloweeny feel. We had a large chunk of dry ice so we put some bowls in smaller cauldrons with just water in them for the foggy effect.

Finally just add in the dry ice (while wearing gloves!) And let it bubble and fizz away. You only have to wait a few minutes before you can start serving it up! If you want your root beer more carbonated, you need to use a lid after you put in the dry ice. Be careful not to let the pressure build up too much. Our kids were too excited to wait for it to get very carbonated. We also added a few small pieces of the dry ice to the small containers with water at this point.

See what I’m talking about? Halloweeny! Enjoy and don’t forget to let us know if you try this yourselves. It really does add that wow factor to parties.

Erika