Hey, Free Books!

Today, I won a giveaway, hot dog! From the lovely Finslippy and sponsored by Chronicle books: a set of Worse-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure books. The kids will be crazy excited. Thanks, Alice!!!

Apple Pancakes!

We love pancakes, we love apple pancakes, these apple pancake rings seemed like a must-try for us.



Easy to do - cut apple into thin (1/8") slices. Dip into pancake batter, shake off extra. Cook like pancakes on a griddle. The apples stayed a little crunchy. No need for syrup ... eat with your hands!

(Plus: Instagram for Android, finally! I'm super psyched over here.)

Felt Flowers

More crafting with Grandma ... she spent a couple of days with us during spring break week, and I asked Dora to flip through our craft book and find a project that we could work on together. She chose these felt flower pins from Family Fun, and it was a great choice.



Dora drew the shapes, my mom cut them out, and Grandma glued them together.



Everyone really enjoyed this! The pins turned out very sweet. They'd also look cute with a few stitches for detail, but we didn't get that fancy. Grandma took a couple home and Dora pinned one on her scout vest. I think we'll give the others away at my cousin's wedding in a few weeks.

Baking Monday - PB Pretzel Buttons

Apologies to my husband, another peanut butter recipe this week!

My sweet Aunt Beth used to make a specialty chocolate-pb dessert that our family always called Betty Bars. Sadly, she passed away ten years ago, but thanks to her children, Betty Bars are still a staple at family gatherings. This recipe is very similar, but swapping pretzels for the graham crackers in Aunt Beth's original recipe. Of course she was on my mind while I was making these yummy treats.



Naked.



Dipped.



See inside? Let them several hours in the fridge for the chocolate to really set, so they're not too sticky.



Really delicious.

Watercolor Eggs

More crafting with Grandma ... we made watercolor eggs a few weeks before Easter. Not my favorite color combo - the red turned out too dark - but it was a fun project. Inspired by a tutorial on this blog (I can't link directly to the project page, but it's called "Good Egg"), but the directions are pretty simple: trace shapes on watercolor paper, then paint, dry, and cut.



Clark got really into the painting. BTW, plastic egg cartons make perfect paint trays! I also prefer using liquid watercolor over solid for kids - it's easier for them to get really vibrant hues and easier to change colors without mucking up the paint.



Clark's paintings.



Grandma's paintings.



... and mine. It's been interesting working on art projects with Grandma. I like making things with allover patterns, but she definitely prefers more controlled, symmetrical designs. We hung these paper eggs on our back window, they made a nice decoration.

Works for Me Wednesday - Photo Booth!

I set up a faux photo booth for the kids to have fun with during a recent party. There are some cute photo props available online, both for purchase and for sharing. Of course, I wanted to do my own instead. I spent a morning working on the artwork, then printed and colored with bright markers. (Yes, I could have let the kids do the coloring, but why should they have all the fun?)



I mounted them on black poster board. (Old phone book + Diet Coke flat = perfect surface for spray glue. Then just rip out and toss the sticky pages when done.) Running a black sharpie over the edges after trimming hides any white and finishes them off nicely.




I taped a bamboo skewer to each shape with black duck tape, and reinforced the frame with skewers as well. A (semi) pressed bed sheet was the back drop. I set up my camera on a tripod aimed at kid height. This was done in the basement play room, so no natural light, but the pics still turned out pretty good.



This was a FUN party activity - the kids had a great time taking snapshots of each other. You could use other props too, like scarves or dress-up clothes, but Dora only wanted to use the paper shapes.








Would you like to use them for your next party? Here they are!

Download balloon prop here.

Download frame prop here. (Tile on two 8.5 x 11 pages)

Download face props here.

Download hat props here.

Download microphone prop here.

Scrappy Paper Tree!

This scrap paper tree was one of the first things I ever pinned, over a year ago. So it's been in my want-to-make hopper for awhile. I picked up a couple small packs of scrapbook paper on sale a few months ago that had nice colors and patterns. As I'll be putting away Easter decorations soon and have nothing to go on the table in the foyer, it seemed like a good time to finally make it.



I had the paper, wire, and a yard full of branches, but didn't have a vase. Happily, one fell right into my lap ... Dora participated in an Edible Arrangement workshop and her finished product came home in this perfectly sized, lovely colored vase. Project - ON!



The original poster traced and cut the leaves by hand, which would probably be easy enough to do. I was hoping to find a leaf punch, but the closest I found was an oval.



I started with a bunch of oval cutouts and used a paper template to taper the ends. (No tracing, just held up the template on top of each oval. I ended up doing the little leaves by hand - put two pieces of paper back to back and trimmed. It's a forgiving enough shape to eyeball.



Then came the fun part - matching up fronts and backs and assembling. I used a glue stick to sandwich a short piece of wire in between the two leaves. I found that this is not super secure ... would recommend keeping the wire in place with a little bit of clear tape before gluing.



I found it easiest to hold the leaf in place at the base, and then wrap the wire around each branch, from leaf to end.



It's been awhile since I've worked on a good ol' fashioned craft project, and this was a fun one.



It's actually a little addicting ... I love the instant gratification! I may be adding more leaves.



Yay! So pretty!