Fingerpainting Fun!

Today we made home made finger paint and I have to say that it was one of the better craft recipes I have made. It kept Willow amused for nearly an hour. We did finger painting "prints" where she would paint on a plastic surface ( I used a large container lid) and then use a piece of card to press on to it and make a "print".

I don't remember where I got the recipe from but this is how I did it:

Mix
1 c of cornflour
1 tsp salt
4 tbs sugar
4 c water
in a saucepan and heat until it thickens and goes translucent (this doesn't take long, gets there just as it's starting to get close to boiling point) take it off the heat, split into little bowls and colour with food colour. I used food colour pastes with great results. Willow had a great time mixing the colours into the different bowls of finger paint.

This makes a fair bit. Enough for 2 lots of 5 different colours. I've popped one lot in the fridge for later use.

Our gloopy fingerpaints worked really well with food colour pastes. We used sky blue, grass green, orange, red and purple - this is about half of what the above recipe made.

Erin's Baby Shower

My lovely cousin Erin is about to have her first baby in a few weeks (little Ella Clare) and yesterday she had her baby shower at my house.

We played three games - the modeling baby competition with little tubs of play doh (about $12 from costco for 80 mini tubs - yes, 80, it's not a typo) and then we played the baby trivia game and then pin the dummy on the baby - lots of fun!

Fairy Cakes with cupcake toppers

I had so much fun decorating the house and food table for the baby shower. I can't wait to meet this little fluffy Ella Clare!

The food table with the banner I made for Ez :)

 On the food table we had egg salad and lettuce & chicken almond tea sandwiches, little lolly dummies, strawberry fairy cakes, raspberry pavlova, fruit platter, chocolate coconut slice, jam coconut slice and chicken and leek mini vol au vents.

The egg salad filling was: 6 x hard boiled eggs, 1/2 c mayonnaise, 1tsp tarragon leaves (finely chopped), chopped chives, 1 tbs dijon mustard and salt and sugar to taste and it made about 6 whole sandwiches. The Chicken almond sandwich filling had about 400g shredded bbq chicken (no skin), 1/4c sour cream, 1/4c mayonnaise, 2 x finely chopped celery sticks, some parsley, salt and pepper.

The Jam and coconut slice recipe can be found here - its the Women's Weekly one and the coconut chocolate slice recipe can be found here it's from Kidspot.

The pavlova was a bought base from Coles and I topped it with whipped cream and raspberry syrup (1/2 c caster sugar, 1/4 c water, 2 tsp lemon juice, packet of frozen raspberries - mix water, sugar and lemon together and stir until the sugar dissolves add raspberries and bring to the boil, simmer over a low heat for awhile (5 mins or so) for the raspberries to infuse and then drain the raspberries off and refrigerate the syrup - it'll thicken a bit as it cools) and fresh raspberries.

With the fairy cakes I just use the Scout's cupcake recipe the only change is I replace the SR four with the same amount of sifted plain flour and 1 and a 1/2 tsp baking powder. They're lovely, light and spongy. Instead of icing them (I hate icing, I find it messy and tedious so I avoid it - and I eat far too much of it! I dig out a circle from the middle with a sharp knife and I pop in a tsp of strawberry jam and a dollop of whipped cream and pop the little cake lid on top.

The vol au vent filling recipe can be found here at Taste. It was delicious in mini vol au vent cases and baked in the oven until hot (they didn't last very long at all).

The cupcakes, dummies and tissue paper flowers.

Little food signs.

Much fun was had by all and we all flopped on the couch afterwards exhausted (we also ordered chinese for dinner last night, none of us could be bothered cooking!).

First Day Back

Today was my husband's first day back at work after a month of being off with Wills and I. Needless to say - we have REALLY missed him and because we've REALLY missed him we've been REALLY busy to try and make the day go quickly.

Today, we've played with and arranged our new wooden spoon puppets...

Our wooden spoon puppet "family"

We've been making these over the last few days after I found a craft kit in "Riot Art and Craft", well the 4 spoons just weren't enough - we kept going (reject shop / dollar shop is great for this project!)!

We went to the shops and had a do nut, did the shopping and climbed the ladder at the park...

 and then came home and made playdoh eggs to put in to the little gold basket from the markets. After we did that we had some lunch and then tried out this really great art project - cheap and not too much to clean up! We made a contact picture. First of all I taped a sheet of contact paper onto the window sticky side out. Then Willow went to town sticking bits of paper, feathers etc. onto the contact. No glue required! It kept her occupied for nearly half an hour and the whole time she kept up this chatter as if she was talking to an audience about her beautiful picture! The picture is now hanging pride of place in my study.

 Here's Willow working on it. I had images in my head of sweetly made suncatchers, cut into different shapes covered in an array of LITTLE pieces of tissue paper.. what I got is. well, this. They DO say it's the process and not the end product!

Willow soon decided to experiment to see if play doh would stick (yep), small plastic dollies (nope) and feathers later on (absolutely, she had a ball with the feathers).

Then the different materials began to merge and she started making a play doh creation by sticking feathers into it. I thought it was a porcupine she told me (indignantly) that it was in fact a rain cloud (of course).

and THIS is the finished product! She was VERY proud of her efforts - much better than some sun catcher stars after all!

The life and times of a picky eater...

So, clearly, I'm not the first parent of a toddler to bang on the picky eater drum but I wanted to share with you the glorious Bento Box...

"Bento" is a Japanese style of eating and translates in to basically lots of little bits of different foods eaten from a lunch - or bento - box. So, I've been trying this with Willow with some success. The idea is, is to make food "cutesy" so they'll be more willing to eat it. Now, I was a skeptic at first - who has time to cut cheese stars for goodness sake?? - but as we were sitting at the kitchen bench at lunchtime today - Willow was making playdoh 'eggs' to fill the little basket her Daddy bought her from the trash and treasure markets and I was, you guessed it, making cheese and carrot stars for her "bento" lunch.

She asked me what I was doing and I told her and then watched as she ate about 6 slices of raw carrot all cut into mini stars. She would NEVER have touched it otherwise. I am as certain of this as I am that the sky is blue! So I stood there, a bit bemused, and then proceeded to "cutesy" up as much food as I possibly could!

So, this is what her lunch looked like when I was done (next to the little cup of tuna was three thin slices of ham rolled up) she was pleased enough to give me a little sigh in awe :)

I had a look around for Bento lunch boxes and found A LOT and I also found a stack of "Bento Accessories" like sandwich stamps, food picks, cutters, little sauce containers, food separators, silicon food cups even a little gadget that turns frankfurter sausage into a person.  A great website to see what products are available is:
Laptop Lunch it's an American website - and crazy expensive - but its a great place to find out what to search for on Ebay - which is where I went and picked up a great bento style lunchbox and some accessories for a third of the price - thanks to low postage from Japan!

NEW things in store for January, plus some great combo deals...

I've been busy creating some new stickers and note cards for my website. Go and have a browse around, you might find something that you like :)

Also, I have finally opened my facebook store! Hooray!

Off to pop to the grocery store and the park with Wills :) It's my husband's first day back at work today, so it's back to just us.

New things for Jan / Feb :)

Fun in Goulburn with Grandma...

Wills and I have had such a wonderful holiday - I'm so blessed to be able to have such a long summer break, being a teacher. One of the highlights was traveling to Goulburn to see my mum - Willow's beloved "Nanny Bibby" to have a picnic in Belmore Park - truly one of the best parks for kids, it has paths everywhere for bikes, play equipment, swings and even a big train! - It's only an hour from my door to my mum's so it was a nice quick trip for a day full of fun.

Mum had bought Willow a gorgeous little trike - and we had such a nice time riding it around the park. This is my mum and Willow riding around.

After the park we just had to have a paddle pop and a play in the park and then it was back to Nanny's house for some quiet playtime before having a bath in Nanny's bath (Will found this bit particularly exciting) having macaroni cheese sitting on Nanny's lounge (see a theme here?) and then back into the car after a wonderful day for the quick drive home.

Willow talked about this little visit for days on end. We've decided that we'd better go every month because it just is so much fun.