Easy Vacation Memory Keeper

A couple of years ago my Mom hosted our entire family for an amazing trip to Italy.  We stayed in a town called Montecatini Terme in an amazing house with a pool.  We participated in passegelato after dinner every evening ("passegiata"=evening walk, "passegelato"=evening walk to get gelato).

It was lovely.  Thanks, Mom!

During this trip we were faced with the challenge of collecting some souvenirs for the kids that would remind them of the amazing trip without taking up an amazing amount of space in our luggage.

We noticed that there were these great tourist-y pins at many of the stops on our journey and decided they were just the thing to collect.  Small, inexpensive, and available just about anywhere our travels would take us.  Sold!

When we returned home from the trip, I was determined to find a way to display the pins so that Sprout and Tater could enjoy and add to their collections over time.  After considering different materials and ideas, we ended up with this super-easy combination of felt and cork board.

To make these we took a tile of self-adhesive cork and cut it in half (that made one for each child).  Then we cut a piece of black felt to the same size and stuck it to the cork (using the adhesive from the cork to stick it on).  This (not good) picture shows the side of the felt/cork sandwich.

I bought a length of canvas-like ribbon and sewed it to the back of each "plaque" so that it could be hung up.  I had to fiddle with them a little bit to get the ribbon spaced properly so that the center of the cork wouldn't sag.

Then we just stuck the pins through the felt and cork and used their backs to hook them on.  The backs really have to be smooshed on pretty hard to get them to click together, but eventually we got them all hooked.

This has been a really fun collection to add to over the intervening years.

Here is one of the originals from Florence:

Rome (we didn't go there - but my parents did):

There's also one on the side there from a Phillies game.  And the one on the far left is from Munich (we were in the airport on the way back from Italy, the kids figured that was pin-worthy).

There are also more domestic destinations represented in their collections.  Nashville:

The Mote Aquarium in Sarasota (no, I don't know what those manatees are doing...):

These are fun mementos of trips that we have been on, and it is fun to get souvenirs from the travels of friends and family, too.

How do you commemorate your travels?  Do you have a collection, too?

Jell-O Suncatchers

Back before Easter, I was flipping through the newest issue of Family Fun Magazine and found this fun idea to make "plastic" sun catchers using gelatin and food coloring.  Fun, right?

I asked the kids if they wanted to try it out and they gave me kind of a hard time about it, but eventually gave in when I told them they could squirt in the food coloring.  Food coloring is fun!

So we gathered our materials:

• A box of unflavored gelatin
• Some food coloring
• Some glitter
• Some plastic plates
• Little bowls (make sure they are heatproof so they don't collapse when you add boiling water)
• Spoons for mixing
• And some boiling water (I was in charge of water).

First we put an envelope of the gelatin (which is icky smelling stuff) into each of our little glass bowls.

Then I carefully added 3 Tablespoons of boiling water to each.  The steam came leaping out of my Pyrex measuring cup at one point causing me to spill a full spoon of boiling water over my hand - ouch!  Be careful!

The kids diligently mixed until the gelatin dissolved in each bowl.  It got a bit lumpy here and there, but with more and more mixing, the lumps eventually went away.  I tried zapping one of the bowls in the microwave for a few seconds to see if that would help and - oh my - that was not a good idea.  There was a lot of frothing and bubbling.  Very frightening. I wouldn't recommend it.

Once we had the gelatin powder all dissolved the kids added a few drops of food coloring to each bowl and mixed that in well.  Somehow everyone ended up with very green hands.  Not sure whether that was an accident or intentional.

Then we poured each batch of colored gelatin onto an individual plastic plate.  I had these strangely shaped rimmed plates.  Bigger flatter ones would probably be easier to work with.  It was hard to peel the dried gelatin out of the corners of these.

Anyway, we spread the hot gelatin mixture out on the plates and then added a few drops of a contrasting color and swirled it around on a few.  We also dusted the surfaces with a little bit of glitter.

Then we waited overnight for the cooling, drying process to take place.

The next day I peeled the almost dry (it was still a little rubbery) result off of the plates and laid them out to dry the rest of the way.  You can see the swirls on the surface of the finished product and how they got a weird bendy, organic-type shape to them.  I think this was because of the weird plates.  If you had bigger ones and could just pop the dried disks off, I bet they would stay flat.

In the magazine, they said to cut the dried "plastic" into shapes.  But when I tried that with the blue one, it was too brittle and cracked all along the edges.  Maybe if I had tried when they weren't quite dry it would have worked better.  Or if I had a decent pair of scissors.  Or talent.  This picture is supposed to show the cracking.

I like the effect of the bendy circles anyway.  I think they have a blown art-glass sort of feel to them.  This one reminds me of the sun.

This was a fun project, but sort of dangerous and tedious for the kids.  They liked the coloring part, but the boiling water part was sort of nerve-wracking and the waiting-for-things-to-dry part wasn't fun at all.  But the final results were really cool.

Aqua Sand Review

Check out our experience with Aqua Sand on the Review page.

Where is the fun??

I have totally fallen off of my fun bandwagon, it is sad.  We have been busy keeping warm, cleaning up after our dog, going to basketball practice, writing reports about the rainforest and the Dewey Decimal system, and of course watching way too much TV.

We figured out how to get movies from Netflix on our XBox and the kids have been demanding regular movie nights.  First we watched Benji, then Bolt and just now Tater and his dad finished watching some Tom & Jerry.  Lots of animal flick action!

I am busy writing over here at 43 Resolutions...and I did post a fun video of my dogs being silly, so maybe that will distract you momentarily while I get my act together to post more fun stuff over here.  I haven't forgotten about you!  Really!

Tater has been working on these little pegboard "fuse bead" projects (pictured at the top there) like a maniac. We have had them for a few years, and now he is coordinated enough to do them himself.  When the kids were smaller they would make me sort the different colored beads out for them, which was a bit tedious for me, but made them feel all management-like.

If you do a Google search on "pegboard beads" or "fuse beads" you can find them, or they are available at any craft shop and even in the toy department at IKEA.  Here are a few Amazon links to get you started: Perler Fuse Beads, Perler Small Pegboards For Fuse Bead Activities, Perler Fuse Bead Bucket Activity Kit.

We discovered that it is most cost-effective to buy a big tub-o-beads and the basic pegboards and then go print designs from on-line.  Google "fuse bead designs" and you will find tons of them for FREE!!

Tater does these en masse and then makes me get out the iron and fuse them all together.  I think he does this just for the novelty of seeing me with an iron in my hand.

Very rare.  With an element of danger that is very exciting...will I set something on fire??

I haven't yet.  But every time there is a chance!


Never a dull moment!

Jingle Bell Wreath

I was trying to remember why I had jingle bells lying around, and then I realized that it was because we made this cute little wreath last year.

Jingle bells are crazy cheap at craft stores, I think a bag of them was about $2.  Or maybe I am deluding myself into thinking they are cheap.  I am still firmly convinced that greeting/birthday cards cost about $1.  I am always surprised that they are closer to $4.  For a card!!

Anyway, maybe jingle bells cost more than $2 a bag.  But they aren't very expensive.

We already had this and I thought, "How hard could it be to make that?"  And really, not hard at all.  Although ours isn't exactly the same.  This one is on wire, the one we made is on monofilament (fancy name for fishing line).

To make a little jingle bell wreath you need:

Jingle Bells - ours are all silver, but a mix of colors could be fun.

Monofilament - like heavy fishing line, you can find it in the beading section at a craft store.

Ribbon

1) Cut a piece of the "string" about a foot long.

2) String the bells on.  They will cluster up as you go.  You want them all packed together as tightly as possible.  We used about 26 bells.  But depending on the size of the bells and what you want to do, you could use more or less.  The kids love to do the stringing.

3) As you go, try circling the threaded bells into a wreath shape, when it holds the shape appropriately, stop stringing.  If you make it too big, it will be all floppy and unwreathlike.

4) Tie the string tightly.  Double knot.  Heck, triple knot.

5) Tie the ribbon in a nice bow (hardest part, I think).  I used the wire-edged ribbon, which is really pretty, but a PITA to tie.  You are probably better at it than I am.

6) You can either tie the ribbon right onto the little wreath, or use the "tails" from stringing the bells to tie the bow on.  Whatever works for you.  We used the tails.

7) Trim the ends of the string.

8) Hang up your cute little wreath.

I like to put these on doorknobs so they jingle when you open the door.

Next up - I am going to figure out how to make one of these.  I have no clue where to start, but I love the "grape-iness" of the way they are clustered up.

But right now, I have to go get gift tags, deliver a cello to school, and go for a LONG walk to unload some of the cookies that have jumped, unsolicited, into my mouth in the last few days.

Jingle on, my friends!  (Like "Rock On"...but jingly...)

Glitter and Glue Ornaments

This is a quick and easy project from one of the Kid Concoction Books. I don't know which one because Tater found it in the book, described what he was going to do, and then did it. I got the supplies out for him and provided encouragement, but besides that I was hands off on this one.

First I need to mention that I clearly need some photography training because it is far beyond me to share with you how pretty and sparkly these are on the tree. My attempt over there is flat and lame. So noted for my developing resolution list.

Materials: Sheet of Wax Paper, White Glue (Elmer's), Glitter, Ribbon

1) Lay the sheet of wax paper out on a cookie sheet or a piece of cardboard (so you can move it later to let it dry).

2) Draw shapes on the wax paper with the glue. Use a decent thickness of glue so that the end result is a sturdy-ish ornament (you are going to peel it off of the wax paper).

Tater made a diamond, a little triangle, a Christmas Tree and a star (the tree is in that pile of glitter).

3) Cover the glue with a thick coating of glitter.

4) Let dry overnight.

5) The next day, peel the glitter shapes off of the wax paper and flip them over.

6) Retrace the shape with glue and cover the other side with glitter.

7) Let dry again overnight.

8) Loop a ribbon through for hanging.

Voila!

Disney on Ice DEAL!!

I have been trying to make some plans for what to do with the kids during the LONG week of Winter Break. Hoping to catch up with some friends, maybe do some ice skating. And then I found out about this great deal for tickets for Disney on Ice!

The shows are playing at the Wachovia Center and open on December 23rd. If you use the coupon code MOM at www.ComcastTix.com you can get four tickets for $44 for Monday-Friday matinee shows, and $4 off Friday night and weekend shows; any additional weekday tickets are still priced at $11. That's $11 per ticket!! That's less than Monkey Joe's (sorry Joe).

Here's the official description of the show:

Disney On Ice presents Let’s Celebrate! It’s one colossal party on ice, with all your favorite Disney friends! Enjoy a winter wonderland with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, a Halloween haunt with the Disney Villains, a Very Merry Unbirthday Party, a Royal Ball with the Disney Princesses and more in a magical medley of holidays, celebrations and festivals from around the globe.

We are going on December 28th and the kids couldn't be more excited. One day planned...seven more to go!

I wrote this post as part of the Feld Entertainment Activator Program. In return for sharing this (awesome) news I received a free family pack of tickets to the show. Yay!

Slumber Party

First, I have to get all braggy because I am excited that I am now a contributor over at Chesco Moms. So, it isn't that I haven't written in more than a week. I just haven't written HERE. Which is inexcusable, yes. And yet, I am making excuses.

But I did want to share with you the events of last Friday evening when, in honor of Sprout's 10th birthday (with which I am still coming to terms), we hosted our very first SLUMBER PARTY!

And yes, there was even actual slumber involved!

So, let's run through this in chapters...

Chapter 1: Arrival

We had sent invitations to 5 of Sprout's friends, so our total planned number was 6 including Sprout herself. The invitations were for 5:30.

Except apparently they weren't. My friend and assistant, the lovely Ms. Jess arrived just before 5:30, but no kids. Not even one. And then it was 5:45, and I was getting a little nervous.

Did I write the wrong date on the invitations? (Because it is entirely possible that I would).
Did they all catch the Swine Flu? (Although I would guess they would call if they did).

Tick. Tick. Tick...Tick.

And then at 6:00 all of the kids arrived en masse. So apparently I got the date right, but the time wrong. Oh me, you suck at planning...

Chapter 2: Dinner

Tater and Mike (aka Daddy) stayed and had some of the pizza and chicken fingers (that had arrived just before 5:30 and were now approaching old). Yum. Then the boys took off to go see Disney's A Christmas Carol so they wouldn't get a whole bunch of girl germs on them.

Wine was poured. No, not for the kids. Courage was mustered.

Chapter 3: Make-Overs

In preparation for this momentous event, I procured for young Sprout the vast array of cosmetics shown at the left there. Yay for Ulta! This monstrous kit was only $19.99 and I think I may need one of my own.

I figured that I would de-mystify make-up for her, she can play with it as much as she wants. She can't wear it out of the house for a few years, but she can play.

And I can borrow it. Woo Hoo!

Anyway, we set up two chairs and Ms. Jess and I set about making over those innocent little faces. Not that they needed it, but it sure was fun. Ms. Jess even brought her own can of hot pink hair spray, because that's the kind of girl she is.

So here is Sprout before:

And here she is after.

Most notable surely are her raging red lips. For all of the other girls we carefully applied sparkly pink lip gloss with Q-Tips, to be sanitary and not spread illness all about the place. But Sprout felt that since the make-up kit was hers, she could go full-on with the lipstick and applied her own.

I am in very, very much trouble in the near future.

Unfortunately, I am not going to show you the other girls, because they aren't mine and I don't know how their parents would feel about that sort of thing, but trust me, priceless. Many sparkles were involved.

Chapter 4: Craft Project

We ordered these very cute monster pillows from Oriental Trading. The fleece pieces have little strips that the kids tied together to put the front and back together and they came with the stuffing and face parts.

Unfortunately I didn't have the right kind of glue, so there were face parts everywhere except on the pillows. But it was fun while it lasted.

The girls were giggling and chatting and comparing cell phones (!) Ms. Jess and I attempted not to eavesdrop. Sort of.

Chapter 5: Cake

I purchased an unfrosted 1/2 sheet cake (effectively wigging out the bakery department at the Acme), and the little cardboard circles that bakers use to display cakes.

I cut the big naked cake into 8ths, so that each child (plus Tater) would have their own smaller naked cake. The cakes were placed on the fancy little circles and passed out to the girls along with tubs of frosting, spreaders, sprinkles, and decorating icing.

And so they set about decorating their own cakes.

Ms. Emily decided that she didn't really want to decorate her cake and entertained herself by eating her naked cake without a fork. This set a dangerous precedent for later, as you will see.

Sprout applied a liberal layer of vanilla frosting and attempted to created a waterfall of blue. I took the blue away from her, much to her dismay. Mean Mommy. But she was still smiling.

Here is the finished product for one of our other guests, I believe it was Ms. Maddie.


And about 30 seconds later, THIS was Ms. Maddie.


Need a fork?

And then about 10 seconds later, Ms. Maddie's twin sister, Ms. Lexi got in on the action.

Oh my.

Of course the other girls thought this was HYSTERICAL and they continued to face plant in their cakes to the wailing laughter of the crowd. Ms. Jess attempted to be of assistance by pulling their hair back and pinning it.

And then their hands went into the remaining frosting tubs and there had to be an intervention and some serious frosting removal.

I never really want to have to investigate the nostrils of another woman's children in this kind of detail again. Just sayin'.

Chapter 6: Singing

While all of these shenanigans were going on, I quickly frosted the last piece of cake (8 pieces - 6 for the girls - 1 set aside for Tater = 1 left over) into a quick "real" birthday cake so that we could sing to Sprout.

I only put one candle on it because of the very real fire risk of children randomly sticking their faces into cakes. Safety first.

Then the kids went down into the basement and commenced some enthusiastic Guitar Hero/Karaoke. Eye of the Tiger and Living on a Prayer never sounded quite like that before.

Meanwhile, Ms. Jess and I attempted to remove the wayward frosting from every kitchen surface. Rug, table, dog.

More wine may possibly have been drunk. More courage mustered.

A couple of our guests had early morning soccer and left around 10:00. I had to make Sprout drag herself away from the singing to say good-bye.

Because Ms. Jess is violently allergic to dogs, she had to leave me to go home and breathe. I allowed her to go. I am a nice friend.

Chapter 7: Movie

Luckily, Mike and Tater returned from their movie excursion just moments later. Reinforcements!

Around 10:30 we had the remaining partiers in their jammies and sleeping bags and draped all around our family room. Tater joined the girls (who kindly accepted his presence with no fuss) and the lights were all turned down/off. And then they settled in to watch Aliens in the Attic.

I retired to the office to do some work. Really.

There was giggling and laughing. A few requests for water.

At midnight they told me the movie was over and I took Tater up to bed. He asked if he could read. Um, no.

The girls were really winding down, they watched some of the special features/deleted scenes/bloopers type stuff.

I did more work. Really. Why are you looking at me like that?

At 1:11 I finished my work and went out to check and it appeared that everyone was asleep except for the birthday girl. I gently removed the remote from her hand and clicked off the TV and went to bed.

Chapter 8: Sleep

Chapter 9: The Morning

At 7:30 in the morning, Tater came to my bedside, poked me and asked, "Do you know where the girls are?"

My first though was, "OH NO - They are gone!"

But then I suggested that he check the basement. And he found them.
Whew.

I got up around 8 and my rock star of a boyfriend (aka Daddy) had gone out and gotten donuts, bagels and (YAY!) an iced coffee. He is awesome.

So the kids ate donuts. They rejected the bagels because we didn't have cream cheese. Drat. And then they went downstairs to play.

Chapter 10: The End

Parents came for the remaining partiers around 9:30 and found them in the midst of a rubble of toys and dress-up clothes in our basement.

Party favors were these super-cute little monster boxes (coordinated with the pillows), with candy and a little LipSmacker Lip Gloss inside.

Sprout and Tater and I cleaned up the basement later in the day.

By late afternoon there was little evidence that anything exciting had taken place.

But Sprout was smiling all day!

Election Day

Today was election day. I am sorry to admit that I was an irresponsible citizen and did not go and vote in my local elections. But I would like someone to explain to me whose idea it was for the kids to have the day off for election day. Is that supposed to make it easier for me to vote?

Um...no. It does not.

We spent the morning waiting for a service to come and clean our carpets. I will not name names, but I was not happy when they did not arrive within their allocated 4 hour time window. So I told them to forget about it. I was tired of waiting and it was noon and we were all still in our jammies.

Spending the day in our jammies isn't a bad thing. We are big fans actually.

But today seemed like a doing day. Except that it turned out not to be.

We started out by not having our carpets cleaned. Progressed to not going out for lunch. Not going to order the cake for Sprout's birthday. Not picking up the movie for the same party. Not getting the gifts for her class. Not really going anywhere beyond our cul-de-sac.

Inspired by my burning desire to get the candy OUT OF THE HOUSE, we did try this science experiment. We used Skittles. We dipped each Skittle in water and drew a line across a strip of coffee filter with the melty color.

The wetness of the Skittles in no way dissuaded my children from eating them. So, the whole idea of this activity as an alternative to eating the candy was a bust. Should have dipped them in spinach. They wouldn't have eaten them then!

Anyway, then we stuck the striped pieces of coffee filter into plastic cups with a little water in the bottom. The bottoms of the strips were in the water, but the stripes were above water.

The idea here is that as the water is sucked up into the coffee filter strip it causes the colors to separate out into the individual dyes used. Unfortunately, this process was not at all exciting to watch. Slow. Watching water seep. Boring.

We went outside to play, and when we came back a while later, the strips looked like this.

The top one was yellow - which stayed yellow.

The next one was green - which separated into blue and yellow. Cool!

The next one was purple - which separated into blue and red. Also cool!

The other ones were orange and red - they didn't do much.

The kids looked at these and said, "Hmmm. Cool." and then went to watch some SpongeBob. So I can't say this was a huge success. But it was sciencey. And we tried.

As I said, while we were waiting for our colors to separate, we went outside to play. Both kids started to ride bikes and scooters, but then Tater found his kite in the garage and asked if it was windy enough. It didn't seem like it was, but we decided to give it a shot anyway.

He was so excited he never stopped to take his helmet off.

First we had to get out the kites. We have four. We have never successfully flown any of them.


Then the launch. Run Tater...Run!

Sprout decided to just watch...and strategize.


OK. Maybe just a little more running...


Maybe uphill would work better...

Uh oh...wipeout...

Take a little break...relax...rewind...

Then run some more...

That boy ran and ran and ran...and the kite never quite took off. But he was smiling and laughing and having a great time.

Then his big sister asked if she could try. And up it went.


And he wasn't even mad. They were both so delighted to see a kite IN THE SKY that for a moment there was no competition. No "it's not fair!"

She even let him hold the string.
It was a beautiful moment.

I guess it was OK that they stayed home. Even if I didn't get to put my vote in for Registrar of Wills.

Whatever that is.