Cardboard Crafts

Today’s Fun Kid Friday is brought to you by my lovely friend McMommy (she recommended the Nutella stuffed French toast) and my other lovely friend VeggieMama. 

I haven’t been as ‘crafty’ as usual since I’ve been dealing with a weird sciatic nerve thing.  Thankfully these two ladies have been having some fun with their kids and were more than happy to share.

Toilet paper roll + Paint + Googly Eyes = A snake and an octopus!

~McMommy

 

A giant cardboard box + $7 in supplies from the Dollar Tree = a new play house/flower shop/market stand for my kid.

~VeggieMama

I really need to get a move on and buy some paint for kids projects! 

Be sure to visit next Tuesday when I show you how to cut down your toddler food preparation time!

What is YOUR favorite thing to do with leftover cardboard?

~Lisa

Product Endorsement: Thirty-One Gifts

When I had my baby shower for Kidster I received a ton of Amazon gift cards.  Wooohooo! Right? I really wanted a super cute, super handy diaper bag.  BUT Hubster seemed to feel left out of the Amazon spending spree and he had mentioned that he really liked Fisher Price FastFinder Diaper Backpack.  So I bought it.  He wasn’t nearly as excited about it as I had hoped.  After all I had ‘sacrificed’ my dream diaper bag Soho Soren The Owl 6 in 1!  I guess in my addled pregnant mind I had transformed my Hubster into a squealing bag and shoe loving lady person.  What man gets excited about a DIAPER BAG?  None.  I’ve dealt with the bag as long as I could, 18 months actually.  It’s super handy, don’t get me wrong.  Kidster will use it as an overnight bag for years I’m sure.  Lots of zippered pockets, etc.  I spent the next year and half packing and repacking all manner of bags that I would find around the house or were given to me.  Nothing really soothed the frantic mom lady in my head who could never find her wallet on a play date!

When you’re out and about with toddlers it’s much different than with infants.  Toddlers want things, they WANT things NOW!  I really loved the Soho Soren because it had a ton of ‘quick grab’ pockets on the outside.  Kind of like a mom toolbelt.  Well ladies and gentlemen I’ve finally purchased the diaper bag of my dreams.  This is actually something that not just mom type people would want either.  It would be perfect for going to outdoor festivals, the beach, tradeshows, or traveling out of town.

My friend, McMommy, is a consultant for Thirty-One Gifts and I recently hosted an online only (no scrambling to clean the house, make nibblies or take a shower!) Facebook ‘party’ for her products.  I really liked the catalog and figured I might get a bit of a discount or free stuff.  Wowie wowie! I spent less than $60 and got three amazing bags!  An owl lunch thermal, a really awesome mom purse and the super amazing awesome Zip Top Organizing Tote.  This thing is serious. 

I took it on it’s maiden voyage to the Barnes and Noble story time, lunch and playground trip.  It was like the heavens opened and Jeff Buckley was singing “Hallelujah”.  It’s the little things that make a mom happy right?

Here are few photos of the diaper bag of wonderfulness:

What is that you might ask?  It’s a travel container for Kidster’s “bbbboooon”.  Also known as spoons.  Oh, and a bib of course.  That pocket to the right is holding my iPhone 5c quite nicely too.

 

Those are Little Man’s shoes hanging out on the mesh pocket on the end.  Pretty freaking cute huh?  He never needs them since most toddler playgrounds are “No Shoes”.  But at least we have them when we need them.

 

 

 

 

 

Hoo Hoo is that? That is Kidsters totally NOT spill proof owl straw cup. I don’t have to worry about that now since it has it’s own little place to hang out. 


My sunglasses are hiding on the left and Little Man’s cup is on the right.

That brings us back around to the other side.  Aren’t Kidsters star Mary Jane’s the cutest?  She loves them.  She’s always trying to put them on.  Getting pretty good at it too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But wait!  There’s more!  The inside has a vinyl layer so leaks are super easy to clean.  I’ve got diapers, wipes, diaper trash bags, wallet, cash, and a cute owl thermal lunch bag with snacks being kept cold.

So enough about this fantastic diaper bag ‘o’ happiness.  I just wanted to share! If you are interested in maybe hosting an online only Thirty-One Gifts party so you can get great products that make life a bit easier be sure to message me so I can give you McMommy’s ‘deets’ as the kids are saying these days.

What is YOUR favorite “Tupperware Party” type product?

~Lisa

Growing Cucumber

I was reorganizing my ‘kitchen’ books recently and found an old 1980’s book called “Square Foot Gardening”.  I read it cover to cover and loved it.  My more green thumbed friends pshawed the method and said that it was silly or that it was waste of time… well, I’m happy to say that so far I’ve grown 18 radishes, 2 cucumbers and 8 Hungarian wax peppers.  I’ve learned a lot along the way but next spring I will be getting my garden ready a lot earlier and water a lot more often.  But the book was right.  I haven’t had to spend more than just maybe an hour a week on my garden. 

Basically you can grow a certain number of a certain kind of plant in a square foot.  No more rows!  It’s set up so that you can reach everything without stepping on the soil and letting it stay ‘fluffy’.  Throughout the season you only really had to tend to each square foot as needed.  I tried to grow lettuce, that was a failure, evidently I started way too late and it got way too hot.  Lesson learned!  BUT the cucumbers and tomatoes are doing quite well!

I used yarn to ‘draw’ the square feet, the fence came from the dollar store, and Hubster built the lovely ‘trellis’ with a bit of pipe and twine.  Pretty cool huh? I used plastic spoons to label the plants / seeds. The writing faded quite quickly though. Next year I’ll make something a bit more lasting.

 

Using plant clips from the dollar store I was able to ‘teach’ the cucumber to grow up the trellis and not along the ground.  I planted two seeds. Next year I will start the seeds a lot earlier and those two plants will produce enough cucumbers for my small family for the whole summer.

 

 

 First cucumber of the season!  The rest of my garden became a little overgrown with weeds since it was SOOO hot outside.  My father, who comes from a long line of farmers, informed me that I could just lay newspaper over the unplanted sections and that would keep the weeds away.  Sure enough.  It worked!  I have a bell pepper plant that is growing through a square of newspaper with no weeds in sight!

 

I gave Kidster the cucumber and she walked around with it, nibbling on it, for about an hour.  She was really made when I tried to take it away!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was my first growing season in our new house and I’m pretty happy with how it has turned out so far.  No reason to use a whole packet of seeds when you can use a few and store the rest in the fridge for next year!

Next week I’ll show you how to propagate your basil and use it too!

What is YOUR favorite garden veggie?

~Lisa

Nutella Stuffed French Toast

My friend McMommy recommended that I try ‘Nutella Stuffed French Toast’ after last weeks “Cheese waffles”.  I couldn’t help myself!  So easy, so good and not terribly bad for a breakfast ‘treat’.

All you will need:

• 4 slices of bread, crusts cut off  (one egg is enough for two ‘sandwiches’)
• 1 egg
• splash of vanilla
• Nutella or generic hazelnut spread
• Jam or preserves
• Trusty waffle iron

Just to clarify, raspberry jam on one side of one slice, Nutella
on one side of the other slice. Kind of like you’re making a sandwich.

 

Lay the slices of bread on the egg on the UNspread side. 
Wiggle around until it’s well coated.

Cook for about 4 minutes, or until the ‘steam’ stops rising.

These were so easy and so very tasty. The kidster went from whining to silence in 10 seconds flat!  Thanks again to McMommy who recommended that I try them, they have become a staple for our weekend family breakfast! Now I just need to find bigger bread!

Keep an eye out next week when I show what to do with that bit of leftover muffin batter!

What is YOUR favorite use for Nutella?

~Lisa

Hiding Cords from Kids

We were pretty lucky that our new house has an entire wall of built in bookshelves in Kidster’s room.  Super handy for storage but not so great when her monitor and Scentsy owl have cords that hang down to the wall.  I was always worried that she would pull the cord and the Scentsy would fall on her! I didn’t feel like she could play in her room ‘alone’ for very long because of that danger. After a few hints to Hubster he made a trip to Lowe’s and picked up this CordMate for about $5.
 
It’s basically a tube with a flat side covered in adhesive. He cut a bit of the end off so it could go around the bottom of the shelf.  Kidster can’t reach that shelf yet so now I feel pretty comfortable letting her play alone in her room for short periods of time.

What is YOUR favorite kid safety ‘hack’?

~Lisa

Mini Corn Dogs

Last week we made Homemade Honey Nut Cheerios, a perfect snack for kids AND adults!  This week we’re making Mini Corn Dogs.  These are so yummy I ate 4 of them pretty much as soon as they came out of the oven.

I didn't use an exact recipe, simply inspiration from photos on Pinterest.  I used the packaged corn muffin mix, Jiffy brand.  They are about $.75 at any grocery store.  It’s not the most healthy thing but for a fun snack for the kids you can't go wrong.

Simply mix the batter as directed on the box, using the same temperatures and times as listed. Pour the batter in a bit less than half into your mini muffin tin.  I used my 2 teaspoon sized ‘cookie scoop’.  Cut the hot dog into about 1 inch lengths.  I actually stood up the hot dog in one of the empty parts of the tin and measured it to below the top as a guide.  Press the hot dog bit into the corn muffin batter in the tin.  I then put a bit of tiny cubes of cheese in around the hot dog, about 2 pieces. 
Bake as directed, let cool, ENJOY!

Kidster isn’t a fan of the carby foods so she mostly dug out the hot dog and left the rest of the corn muffin bit for the dog but when she’s older she’ll hopefully like them, we sure did!
Next week I’ll show you how to make the ‘2 Ingredient Pancake” that seems to be so popular lately. 

What is YOUR favorite way to eat a hot dog?

~Lisa

Homemade Play Dough

Kidster is a little over 17 months (almost a year and a half in non parent time) and she’s always asking to play with the Play-Doh.  She actually says “flay” about 20 times before we finally just give in and let her play with it in her high chair.  I noticed she was taking little nibbles of it and had bits of blue goo stuck in her teeth.  Of course everyone says, “Play-Doh is non toxic!”  That being said, I’m not a fan of my kid putting it in her mouth when I’m not really sure exactly what is in it. 

Here’s a bit of history for you.  Play-Doh was originally created in the 1920’s as a wallpaper cleaner.  It was smeared on the wallpaper where the soot from the cooking stoves had caked on the walls.  Kind of along the lines of using silly putty to copy comics from the newspaper. (Do kids still do that anymore?)  It contains mineral oil and borax.  I’m not sure if Kidster ate a chunk of it that she would be feeling ok.  Toxic or not, it just doesn’t seem like a good idea for my 17 month old to be possibly eating.

I remember when we were kids my mom would ‘cook’ play dough for us.  It didn’t taste that great but I know that it wouldn’t make us sick.  I’m pretty sure she used Jell-O as a coloring or something.  This time around I didn’t have any Jell-O so I went this gel food coloring.  Not a good choice might I add, it just wasn’t as bright as I had hoped, and I used a whole tube!

In the spirit of nostalgia I used a vintage Pyrex mixing bowl, and a wooden spoon.  Pretty cool when I was playing with it it smelled just like I remembered when I was a kid.  I found the recipe at The Imagination Tree.  Be sure to subscribe to her blog! She’s pretty awesome!  She used glitter but I wasn’t sure how my dough was going to turn out and I can just imagine trying to get glitter out of a toddlers eye….  not fun.  You can be sure I’ll be adding glitter when she’s older though! Who doesn’t like glitter?

The recipe at The Imagination Tree was a pretty big batch so I halved everything. The recipe below is my halved version.  It’s certainly enough for one kid!  Be sure you have Cream of Tartar on hand because it’s a pretty major ingredient.  I talked about C.o.T. in my post Instant Apple Cider Cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1 C plain flour (all purpose)
• 1T vegetable oil
• 1/4 C salt
• 1T cream of tartar
• Up to 2/3 C boiling water
• Food coloring
• *The Imagination Tree recommends glycerin to add shine but I don’t have any.

Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl.

Add the coloring to the boiling water.  I did this as instructed and it barely added much color to the dough. 

The wooden spoon wasn’t working to mix the dough so I switched to a silicone spatula.

Kidster totally loved the dough and didn’t seem to notice the difference between the homemade kind and the Play-Doh version.  It wasn’t as colorful as I was hoping or remembered.  I think next time we will use the plain food coloring instead of the fancy pants gel stuff.  I ended up using a whole tube of gel color for a half batch of dough.  It’s a bit of a sickly green color but she enjoyed it anyway!

I have no idea what we’re going to have planned for next Fun Kid Friday but be sure to subscribe!

Which do YOU prefer: Play-Doh or Homemade?

~Lisa