My Oreo Pops

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

I just wanted to create a quick post to share how my Oreo Pops turned out. My little boy was happy to give them to his friends, and I got several compliments from the moms. I think they were a success.

Oreo Pops

We are in the process of getting our house ready to sell, so my days are pretty busy and posts may be rare for a week or two - but for today . . .

These are what I am planning to make for my sons preschool class for Valentines Day.

Click here to go to Happy Birds Crafting Haven and see her tutorial.

Sweet Valentine Treats

"Gourmet Mom on the Go" has some very fun ideas for valentine treats.

Click here for her tutorial on how to make these heart shaped cinnamon rolls. Yum!

Click here for her tutorial on how to make these fun edible crayons. Wouldn't these make a great valentine for kids to give to their friends? So cute!

Valentine Hand Sanitizer

Check out this cute tutorial from Just A Girl. She touts this as a teacher gift idea, but I think it would make a great gift for anyone, or even a cute shower favor. Love it!

Valentine Watercolor Project

What a cute art project for Valentines Day, using nothing but paper, crayons, watercolor paint, and rubber cement. I love this blog. She has so many good ideas. My husband uses them often for art in his fourth grade class. So make sure you check out the rest of her blog too. Click here to go to Art Projects for Kids and be inspired.

Valentine MP3 Player

Look at this cute idea from Family Fun. It is an MP3 player made from a box of conversation hearts and a couple of mini peanut butter cups. The instructions come complete with the printouts to make the MP3 player. So cute!

Valentine Bingo

Valentines Day is approaching, and today, I found this cute, free, printable Valentine Bingo game at Making Friends. Click here to take a look and print it out for yourself. Looks like fun!

CD Clocks

I found this idea for making CD clocks at Blissfully Domestic. So cute!!!

Blackboards

My sister-in-law made these for two of my boys for Christmas. What a great idea! She just got quarter inch boards, painted them with chalkboard paint and edged them with wide grosgrain ribbon. She then stenciled their names on the boards with paint. She made crayon rolls for the chalk. So clever!

Chocolate Bon Bons

I made these little babies before Christmas for my husband. He loves them, and I only make them once a year, which is strange because they are soooo easy. Probably, because I love them too and cannot stop at one (or two, or three...).

Chocolate Bon Bons

3 large Hershey Bars (with or without almonds)

1 13 ounce tub Cool Whip

1/2 tsp peppermint extract (optional)

crushed vanilla wafers, flaked coconut, powdered sugar, chopped nuts, etc.

Melt chocolate carefully and pour over Cool Whip which was placed in large bowl. Pour slowly and fold in chocolate as it is poured. Cover and chill in refrigerator for at least two hours. Drop by teaspoon in wafer crumbs (or coconut, or nuts, etc.) and roll into a round ball (about bite size). Place on a cookie sheet covered in waxed paper and freeze. Yum!

Gone Fishin'

I made little fishing sets for some of my nieces and nephews for Christmas. My boys did not want me to wrap them up, as they were having a lot of fun "testing" them for me. I guess I will have to make a few more for them. I blogged about this project in an earlier post - the only change I made to her instructions was to use a washer for the hook instead of another magnet. It was just easier, for me, to avoid drilling the hole in the magnet, and they still worked great. You can find her tutorial here.

Neighbor Gifts

I know, I know. I am not very timely in my posting on this, but I didn't get a chance to blog about my neighbor gifts before Christmas. These are the gifts I made for my neighbors this year.

This is how I packaged them.

Business as Usual

I am finally back from my Christmas break and I will start posting regularly again. I thought I would start out by posting a few of the things that have been keeping me busy over the past month or so.

I am going to start with the superhero capes I made. Two of my boys are in a major superhero phase. They are always bugging me to put something around their neck as a cape, so I decided to make them their very own superhero capes. My sister's children are about the same age as mine, so I decided to make some for them as well. They ended up being a big hit with all the kids! I found a good tutorial at Puking Pastilles which was very helpful. I made my own little changes, but the method is the same.

Gift Tags

Click here for a whole bunch of printable gift tag ideas.

Forgiveness

Today, I decided to let bygones be bygones. My boys have been begging me to play with play dough for weeks now. Today, I decided to allow it. One problem - I had thrown all the commercial Play-Doh out months ago, due to an incident where I found hot pink Play-Doh smeared all over my new carpet. After lots of time, work, and elbow grease, my husband I and were able to get it out of the carpet (It does not come easily). Play-Doh was then outlawed in this house.

Since I decided to give my children another chance today, and I did not want to run to the store for Play-Doh, I dug up an old recipe that my 4-H leader had given me years ago for Cooked Play Dough. It has a nice texture and stays good for weeks, if stored properly. You can probably find this recipe all over the internet, but I decided to share my particular variation. I highly recommend it.

Cooked Play Dough

1 Cup all-purpose flour

1 Cup water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1/4 cup salt

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Food coloring

In a medium sized saucepan, mix all the ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. The dough will begin to look very lumpy and then it will come together into somewhat of a ball. Remove from heat and dump onto waxed paper or a plate. Cool until it is easy to handle and knead for several minutes until smooth. Give it to the kids and let them have fun - with strict instructions to keep it off the carpet!!! Store in a sealed container.