Candy Buttons

The boys were both home from school today so we took the opportunity to make some candy buttons, sometimes referred to as candy dots.  With the boys help they took a little over half an hour to make.

Here’s the recipe we used from the Rachel Ray Magazine:

• 1 1/2 cups of confectioners’ sugar
• 1 egg white
• 3 drops yellow food coloring
• 3 drops blue food coloring

1. Cut white paper (I used card stock) into 2″ x 11″ strips.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar and egg white until thick and smooth, about 5 minutes.
3. Divide the icing into 2 small bowls.
4. Stir yellow food coloring into one batch and blue food coloring into the other.  Cover one bowl of icing with plastic wrap.
5. Arrange paper strips side by side on a flat work surface.
6. Scrape one bowl of icing into a small plastic food storage bag and snip off one tiny corner.
7. Pipe out the icing into small dots on the paper strips.
8. When about a quarter of the bag of icing is left add approximately the same amount of the other color icing to the bag and mix to create green.  Continue piping dots onto the paper strips.
9. Transfer the remaining icing into another small plastic bag and continue piping.
10. Let the dots sit at room temperature 12 hours, or overnight, to harden.

The boys enjoyed stirring in the food coloring and piping out the icing.  The hard part is having to wait to try them.  A good lesson in patience.

Spooky Orange Pomanders – A Halloween Craft

I found this fun idea over here at Eighteen25. My boys had a lot of fun creating their spooky oranges.  My older son was able to create his all on his own, my younger son needed more help but had just as much fun with it.

You will need:

• Oranges
• Toothpicks
• Whole Cloves
• Permanent Markers (optional)

We began our spooky oranges by drawing faces with permanent marker onto the orange.

Then we poked holes with a toothpick and inserted cloves into the holes.

These were easy and fun and made the kitchen smell wonderful.

(They lasted about a week before going bad.)

Hairpin Ghost

What you need:

• Plastic lid, or something similar
• Hairpins
• Scraps of black, or dark colored paper
• Thread
• White glue
• Scissors

Widen the hairpin to create the outline of the ghost.  Tie the thread around the top of the hairpin.

Set the hairpin on the plastic lid and fill the area inside the hairpin with white glue.

Cut a tiny set of eyes and a mouth out of the colored paper and place them on the glue near the top to create a face for the ghost.

Place the lid on a flat surface and allow to dry, we left it overnight.  When the glue is completely dry, peel the ghost off the lid.  Trim off any access glue off the bottom or sides of the ghost.

Create a necklace or hang the ghost in a window or anywhere you want to add a little spooky.

Bug Ice

With Halloween coming up, I wanted to do something fun for my little guys.  Every once in awhile it’s fun to surprise them with something different, something that they won’t expect.  This idea is super easy.  It doesn’t take much time and uses things that you’ve probably got laying around the house.

You’ll just need some little plastic bugs, or for Halloween you can use those black spider rings, and an ice tray, or in my case some Dixie cups.  Wash the bugs then drop them in the bottom of your ice tray.  Fill the tray with water and freeze.  Then when your kids, or spouse, least expects it drop one of the bug filled ice cubes in their drink.  Surprise!

My boys are going to love this!  I’m sure I’ll be making more than one batch of these fun little bug and spider ice cubes before Halloween.  This would be really cute for a Halloween party too.

Rock Bugs

These rock bugs were a fun little craft that my boys and I did the other day when it was too hot to play outside.  It’s pretty self explanatory but here you go:

First I gathered the supplies:                  acrylic paints, paint brushes, wiggly eyes, super glue, paper plates, a splat mat, and the boys picked a few rocks out of the garden.

The splat mat is just a shower curtain that I bought at the dollar store to use for messy projects.

Next, we started painting our rocks:

Once the rocks were painted with the base coat we put them outside to dry.  When they were completely dry we brought them back in to decorate.

When we were done painting and the paint dried we used super glue and glued the wiggly eyes on. 

When our bugs were done we took them outside and hid them in the garden for Daddy to find when he got home.  The boys loved it and could hardly wait for him to search so they could show him what they had made.

Peep Nests – An Easter Treat

The kids and I just made these fun Easter treats, another great Easter activity with kids.

Ingredients include:

• white chocolate (Bakers chocolate or white chocolate chips)
• thin pretzel sticks
• Peeps Chicks

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave until smooth, following the directions on the packaging. 

Break the pretzel sticks in half or in bite size pieces.

Mix the pretzel pieces into the melted chocolate.

Cover a cookie sheet with a piece of wax paper and make little clusters of the chocolate covered pretzels. 

Dip the bottom of a Peeps chick in melted butter and fix it to the top of the pretzel cluster.

When the cookie sheet is full place it in the freezer for 30 to 60 minutes.  This will solidify the pretzel clusters.

Enjoy!

Wax Easter Egg Activity

This is a really easy Easter activity with kids that leaves you with a fun Easter decoration.

First gather your supplies:

Crayons

pencil sharpeners

old towels

wax paper

an iron

scissors

Next, lay one towel flat on the counter and cover it with a sheet of wax paper.  Then begin sharpening the crayons over the wax paper so the crayon shavings fall on the wax paper.

The shavings can be separated by color or all blended together.

When you are done creating shavings place another sheet of wax paper over the shavings.

Next, lay an old towel over the wax paper and slowly iron.  The crayon wax will begin to melt.  Check the progress to see if there are areas that need more heat.  The crayon color can seep through the wax paper which is why you want to use old towels.

Trace egg shapes onto the wax paper and then cut them out.  We taped ours to the window but you could also punch a hole and hang them with string. 

On a sunny day these are beautiful hanging in the window.