New Years Eve Hats…. Or at our house, “NOON YEARS EVE”…

27 Dec

This year we thought our boys might enjoy the fun of New Years Eve… Usually they are fast asleep by midnight, and this year will be no different (in fact we might be sleeping too)…  So instead we are going to have a Noon Years Eve celebration complete with a countdown, party food, noise makers, and HATS…  Here are the simply, quick hats we made for our celebration.  I will post some other party favors and decorations this week, as well, so stay tuned!

Simply New Years Eve Hats:

1.  Cut a piece of clear packing tape so it will fit around your child’s head.  You can either do this by pre-measuring your child’s head with a tape measure or do like I did and just pull the tape out, place it sticky side out around the head, and then cut….

2.  Lay the tape flat, sticky side up, in front of each child.  This is now their canvas.

3.  Let them decorate to their hearts content.  By decorating I mean place the items on the sticky side of the tape. Now my boys were a bit more interested in their new Christmas legos this morning than they were in New Years hats, so they went pretty quickly.  We used pipe cleaners, curly ribbon and puffy balls.  I wanted to also use glitter and stickers, but it just wasn’t happening… Use what you have and have fun…  I think even with their limited attention spans this morning, they made some pretty cute hats!

4.  Once they are done decorating, cut another piece of clear packing tape (we just moved so this is in abundance at our house) the same length as your first piece and place it over the “canvas”…  try to get it as close as possible so that you don’t have any sticky tape getting caught in the hair.  You can always fold over, if needed, however.

5.  Attach the hat to your child’s head.  My boys were a little long so we just overlapped the ends and taped them together.  You could also staple them!  Happy NOON Year everyone!

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From us….

26 Dec

Candy Cane Ice Cream

21 Dec

One of my favorite recipes of the season is Candy Cane Ice Cream…  It is probably the easiest thing you will make this season…  There is a super easy way and an easy way…  I’ll share both :)!

Here is the SCOOP…

1.  Buy (super easy way) or make (just easy way) a half gallon of your favorite vanilla ice cream. I usually make a “cream base” using my ice cream maker, but you can just as easily buy a half gallon of vanilla from the grocery store…  If you use store bought ice cream, let it sit out for a couple of minutes so it’s soft, but not melted…

The base I make is as follows:

2 eggs

3/4 cups sugar

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

Whisk the eggs until light and fluffy, slowly add in the sugar until mixed well.  Add cream and milk and mix together.  Add the vanilla.  Poor into your ice cream maker and watch it work… Mine takes about 30-45 minutes, I just watch it for the consistency I’m looking for.

2.  Buy a package of TRADITIONAL Peppermint Candy Canes…  Unwrap each (I used 5) of the candy canes and put them in a large ziplock bag.  Using the back of a spoon, hammer, etc…  SMOOSH up all of the candy canes… You probably want about a cup of candy canes, but if you like it more peppermint-y then add as many as you like!  This is a great way to release some holiday stress too…  My boys had fun doing this!

3.  OK if you bought ice cream, go ahead and scoop the ice cream into a large bowl.  Add the smashed candy canes to the ice cream in the bowl.  Using a large spoon, mix the ice cream and the candy canes together…

*  If you made your ice cream add the candy canes at the end of the ice cream makers cycle.

4.  Re-freeze the ice cream until ready to serve…  This pic was taken before the re-freeze process… It will thicken up!

5.  I love to serve this with mini chocolate bundt cakes, brownies, chocolate waffer cookies, or even just all by itself!  YUMMY…

 

OK and how cute is this little blog photographer…

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Button Ornaments…

20 Dec

The boys and I have been keeping busy over our winter break…  We’ve done those bead things that you iron (pearler beads they might be called), we’ve baked, we’ve gotten haircuts, played outside and met some new friends!  Today we made these cute little button ornaments.  They didn’t take long, but they were fun!  They might be a good thing to bring to Grandma’s or attach to the outside of a holiday gift!  Here’s the skinny….

1.  Trace some of your favorite cookie cutters onto tag board.  I tried to use tag that matched the color of the shape (white for the snowflake etc..)   I free handed the wreath because the boys really wanted a wreath (go figure) and I don’t own a wreath cookie cutter!

2.  Punch a hole in the top of each of your cut outs and tie it with a ribbon.  OR don’t punch a hole and after your ornament dries glue a clothes pin to the back of the ornament so you can attach it to a tree.  I had to choose the later of the two options because quite frankly I forgot to punch the hole!  You could also attach a magnet to the back…

3.  Slather the front of your shape with all sorts of white school glue… For my boys, this was the BEST part!

4.  Stick buttons of all shapes and sizes all over your ornament.  I did try to “sway” my kids towards choosing colors that are suited for the shape, but I also think making a bunch of trees in all different colors would be adorable.  I actually think cutting just triangle trees (no branches) and then making all different colors would be fun, but my boys wanted different shapes!

5.  We did a second layer of buttons on the tree for ornaments and on the wreath for the bow and berries…  You can tell we took the pics a bit before the glue dried…   I would recommend waiting to attach a clothes pin and/or magnet until they are completely dry.

6.  VIOLA…  Like I said, these would be super cute tied to a Christmas gift, as a gift for Granny, or just hanging on your tree!  You could put your child’s picture inside the wreath-that would capture Papa’s heart!

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!  We’re off to make some Candy Cane Ice Cream…. MMMMMMMMM!

 

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Hot Fudge Sauce….

16 Dec

As you know I am big fans of the blog Brown Paper Packages….  She had a post about back to school gifts that included a recipe for hot fudge sauce.  I altered her recipe and made some for holiday gifts for teachers this year…  I put the fudge in a jar and attached a gift card to a local ice cream shop…  A gift after my own heart!

Here’s the recipe, I filled 4 jars with this recipe!

12 T. butter
4 c. powdered sugar
6 T. cocoa
2 c. evaporated milk

Over low heat melt butter thoroughly. Add sugar and cocoa. Mix well, then gradually add milk. Bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from stove, then serve warm or cold.

Packaging:

I love this because my husband tied the bow, can you tell????  I hot glued a strip of burlap to the outside of the jar and attached a little tag that says “May your home be filled with the “sweet” blessings of the season”..  Nothing fancy…  Had I planned for this project I would have used cuter paper, but alas we had nothing cute at home!

Merry Merry!

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Easy Christmas Tree Craft

11 Dec

I am always surprised by what crafts keep my boys attention for long periods of time, this being one of them…   I really thought this one might take us a few minutes and then we’d move on, I was wrong!  They were having a lot of fun decorating their Christmas trees!  We were able to use some of the craft supplies we had around the house along with some cinnamon pinecones I purchased (cinnamon scented only because that’s all they had).    We made several Christmas trees with all sorts of colors and sizes of pom poms.   I did use hot glue to attach the pom poms, but I think school glue would work too. I put a dot of glue on the pom pom of my child’s choice and let them attach it where they wanted to.  Again, super easy, but they loved it…  It was pretty fun to see their patterns, color choices, and pom pom placement as we went along…  My oldest deliberated about his trees long enough to dry his glue a couple times :).  We currently have these scattered around our Nativity scene making it look very festive for the birth of the baby Jesus!

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Holiday Play-Dough: Gingerbread & Peppermint

3 Dec

During the month of December in Kindergarten I used to always have a play-dough center…  We’d have these lovely smelling doughs available for cookie cutting, tower building, and snake making fun!  I am going to try to make some for the boys this weekend because I know they will love it!!!  I’ll take a picture once I’ve made some, or better yet, post your pics after you’ve made some on Mommyapolis’ facebook page and I’ll post them here!

Gingerbread Play-Dough

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

2tsp. cream of tartar

1 cup water

1 tsp. vegetable oil

spices- cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg

Directions:

Mix the dry ingredients together.  Just try out different amounts of spices until you get the scent and color you desire.  We used a lot of cinnamon!!!!  Mix the water and oil together in a separate bowl and then add them to the dry ingredients.  Cook the mixture on low for 3-5 minutes or when the mixture starts to stick together like a ball.  Take it out of the pan and knead it until it is soft and smooth.  Let it cool before the little ones play with it!

Peppermint Play–Dough

2 cups water
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
4 tablespoons oil
4 tablespoons peppermint extract
glitter (optional, but oh so fun)

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of
the pan. Form dough into a ball, sprinkle with glitter and knead until it is soft and smooth.  Cool completely before allowing little hands to play with it!

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DIY Fabric Circle Wreath

28 Nov

Last summer I saw a picture of a wreath online and for the life of me I can’t find it again, boo…  Someone had linked it up as a fourth of July wreath and I thought it was adorable.  I remembered the general concept and altered it a bit to make a Christmas wreath.   I started by buying a grapevine wreath at the craft store… For me, that was Walmart :).  I then gathered up some fabric in holiday colors, burlap, and scrapbooking brads (notice the hearts left from a Valentines Day shower I hosted).  I used measuring cups (one cup, half cup and fourth cup) to trace different circles from different fabric scraps.  I used the metal brads to combine one circle of each size in different fabrics…  I left the brads open in the back so they would stick into the wreath.  I put a dash of hot glue on the pointy end of the brad and stuck it into the grapevine wreath… I continued this all over the wreath until it was mostly covered.  I did not cover the back and even some spots on the sides are showing… That was just me being lazy and feeling it wasn’t needed.  Obviously if you chose to do this it would look even better :)!  You could do all sorts of variations on color, size, even shape… The burlap “flower” at the top is just made by fan folding the fabric and gluing it together.  I just made a ribbon tie at the back and slipped it over my door hanger.  I am not sure I really like it there, so I might move it.  I always seem to change things up after I take the pic!  This wreath took me about 2 hours to make and I think it’s fun and different.  You could make one for each holiday :).  I hope you are starting to get in the holiday spirit around your house, I know we are!

Tip Junkie handmade projects

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Snow Globes…

15 Nov

There is something fascinating about snow globes, no matter your age.   Every year around this time they come out and it’s hard to resist shaking them up!  We had snow on Sunday and we felt a little like we were living inside one of these special glass balls..  Huge snowflakes falling all around us made us glow with excitement for the season.  Somehow the first snowfall is magical and the last snowfall is disgusting, I’m going to relish in the first for a few days, because it really was OH SO BEAUTIFUL!

I know I know, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but I figured that most of the cold climates will be experiencing the first snow of the year very soon, if they have not already, and this is a great way to “celebrate” it!

Super easy, super fun…

You’ll need….  

Black and blue construction paper

white paint

ribbon for a scarf

glue

markers

Q-Tips

Toothpicks

HOW TO:  

I traced the lid off of a sauce pan for a perfect circle and then cut them out.  I used blue paper, but grey or even black might look cute too… Older kids can do this themselves…  I then let the boys paint their own snowman and snowflakes with q-tips.  I instructed them to use them like snowballs and paint up and down versus side to side.  I also gave them toothpicks for the smaller snowflakes.  Once they were dry we glued on hats (that we cut from black paper), scarves ( I used curly ribbon), and drew eyes, nose and mouths with markers…  I drew a base for the snow globe and let the boys “name” their snowman.  Sutton chose the name “Rosie” for his snowgal…  Some of you who know him might know why :)!  We added a name plate and TADA…  Cute little paper snow globe!   I’ve made REAL snow globes before out of baby food jars, maybe we’ll do that once we find more of our craft supplies that are still hidden in boxes!  For now, I’m going to go outside and enjoy this day!

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A little Blurb….

7 Nov

A little blurb in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune:  http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/133355008.html

 

A few weeks ago I got an email asking me to comment on my experience at SKYZONE, an indoor trampoline park we’ve frequented.  The Star and Tribune writer had seen my mommyapolis post on our experience there and asked me for a quote…  For those wondering,  Skyzone is a franchise located all over the country and it sounds like it’s spreading fast!  The concept is awesome and as the article says, it’s great for all ages!  To check to see if there is a SKYZONE in your area, click here!  THANKS Aimee for contacting me!

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