Easter Baking and Creating

There is something about Easter that inspires great baking and craft creations. I have been doing some mad pinning over the last few weeks, gathering ideas for things I could do to make the Easter season special. I though I would share with you some of my favourite finds. To see my full page, click on this link.

Firstly, food….

I love any recipe that is easy to incorporate little people help. Pizzazzarie

I love how cute these rainbow cakes look. A lovely pastel one would be perfect for Easter. The Gunny Sack

I don’t know that I would have the patience to create these gorgeous biscuits from Somewhat Simple, but I can dream.

The one thing that is always a hit when it is made, is a cheeseball. I might shape my favourite cheeseball recipe into a carrot like Jo and Sue.

And for creating……

Easter garden from The Frugal Homemaker. We have already started on our own Easter garden. We have used wheatgrass instead of moss and have been watching it grow.

If I have said it once, I have said it a hundred times – I LOVE bunting! Living Well, Spending Less

We are certainly going to have a glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt. Lil Luna

Creating one of these at the base of my parent’s massive tree has been a goal of just about every adult of the family at one time or another. It must be done! David Lowe Design

I cannot tell you how much these little chicks are loved by my two boys. They will enjoy making this little project to hang in their rooms. Annaboo’s House

I will pop back soon and show you what we have created and baked. Have a great day!

 

Easter Decorating

I can’t believe that Easter is just around the corner.  I love this time of the year. The kids especially enjoy a bit of Easter decorating, and I thought I would share what we have out with you.

Starting outside in the kids’ play area….

I picked up this cute chalkboard bunting from the local variety store the other day.  I love bunting, and the idea of being able to change the message on it to suit the occasion, is perfect. I added it to the grass bunting I have already slung in our outdoor play area.  The rabbit wall art I picked up at a local gardening store.

There are also lots of families of bunnies throughout the house. The boys hate the idea of anyone being lonely.

As well as looking pretty, these baskets of plastic eggs are used in some educational games with the kids.  You can see some of my Easter inspired educational games here.

So there you have our Easter decorations so far.  I say so far, because the boys will no doubt find something else we, “Just have to have.”

Do you decorate your house at Easter?

The Softest Playdough and Printable Playdough Fun

I started my Christmas holidays today and have been craving some Mummy and sons time, so I thought we would do some fun play.  As it is terribly overcast and humid here in Brisbane, we opted for some indoor fun in the air-conditioning.

Both my boys love playdough.  Recently I saw a recipe for the easiest, softest, most beautifully smelling playdough.  It only has 2 ingredients, one of which you would never guess, and takes only a few minutes to make. You must give it a go….

Soft Playdough

Mix 2 parts cornflour (corn starch) to 1 part hair conditioner.

Knead until it comes together in a soft dough. At this point you can colour it with food dye.

Play!

It really is that simple.  I picked up a cheap conditioner at the shops that had a lovely smell and pink colour, so I didn’t have to dye the dough myself. Obviously, this isn’t a playdough for little ones who might be tempted to taste their dough creations.

The boys have spent the morning playing with this as well as some free playdough printables I found on the net.  I printed and laminated them so they will survive the holiday season.

You can find these playdough mats at Tot Schooling .  Another place to look is Busy Little Bugs.

 

The Playdough puppets are found at the Nuture Store.

What a lovely, simple activity for us to start the Christmas holidays with.

 

 

More Kids’ Activity Packs

Yesterday I showed you some of the activity packs I created for my two boys (see here). Today, I promised to reveal some of the other ones….

Colour Spelling. Match the paddle pop colour word to the correct coloured sleeve.

Threading. Using large coloured buttons, pipe cleaners and thread. A great activity to get the little fingers working and to practice colour recognition.

And my boys’ favourite – Fly Swat. I teamed a frog-shaped fly swat with collections of fly covered sight words, numbers and animal pictures. We have come up with lots of ways to play this game. My youngest has used the animal cards and as I called out the animal sounds, he hit the corresponding animal picture.  Last night, my eldest had me call out a number and he tried to hit it as fast as he could. So there are 6 activity pack ideas for you.  Believe it or not, I have created more Easter themed ones which I will blog about soon. Can you believe it is that time of year again!?

Have a great day.

Simple St Patrick’s Day Artwork

Last week I showed you a picture of the canvas print I picked up in the clearance section of a local discount store.The plan was to transform it into a simple St Patrick’s Day artwork with the kiddies.

After surfing the internet for a bit of inspiration, we came up with this….

The kids got right into the task with Master O helping to paint the letters and trace the shamrock.

Initially, the plan was to just paint the shamrock, but on drying we found that the paint was cracking. Not wanting to persist painting to have the same problem happen again, we chose to cover the shamrock in buttons. Master C loved picking out the green buttons from my button collection – I couldn’t have dreamt up a better fine motor skills activity!So this piece is now out on show and we are planning on some St Patrick’s Day treats for tomorrow.  We have made some hideous green cupcakes for morning tea and have planned a leprechaun treasure hunt with a horde of gold covered chocolate coins. It should be a bit of fun.

Happy St Patrick’s Day.

 

Free Printable Children’s Activities

A while back I showed you a few educational and fun activity packs I made up for my boy’s to play with.

They have been such a hit, I thought I would trawl the net for some more ideas.  I hit the jackpot when I came across these three sites with amazing children’s prinatables, lots of them free.

They were so amazing, the printer went into overdrive.  The laminator was fired up and I stayed up late making a lot of fun activity that the kids LOVE.

So what sort of activities did I find? Here are just a few…..

The cutest puppets and song sets. These are 5 Little Ducks and 5 Green and Speckled Frogs .

Colour Match Games.

Shadow Match Games.

Sequencing Games.

Threading and shoe tying help.

And lots of shape, reading and writing skills games.

I now have about 20 activity packs all made up.  I have got into the habit of grabbing one or two of them before I leave the house with the boys. They keep the boys well entertained while waiting for the doctor or for the meal to arrive at the cafe. A lifesaver in many ways!

Stop by the following amazing sites to print out your own activities…..

Picklebums, Busy Little Bugs, The Measured Mom.

Great Festive Cookie Recipe

The other day I headed to the shops in an effort to finish all of my Christmas shopping.  The whole expedition went wonderfully.  I was focused, determined and fuelled by coffee. Well maybe I wasn’t 100% focused, because this little unplanned, but severely cute item, jumped into my trolley.

I mean with all the festive cooking that goes on around here, how could I not have a cute Christmas mug and snack plate?

One little festive treat I whipped up to enjoy on my new plate is this super easy and tasty cookie.

The recipe is not new. Last year I posted about the Cookie Jars that I gave to friends and neighbours. You can read about them here.

We so enjoyed these, I have baked them several times throughout the year.  But, now that the green and red m&ms are back, I had to make these cookies – Christmas style.

Christmas Cookies

Ingredients**

• 1  1/3 cup Plain Flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup christmas m&ms
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup castor sugar
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup butter (room temp)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 deg Celsius (160 deg celsius – fan forced)
• Place all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and combine
• Add egg, butter and vanilla and mix until the ingredients come together
• Roll heaped tablespoons into balls and place on a lined cookie tray
• Bake 10-12 minutes

**These measurements are Australia metric. 1 cup = 250 mls, 1 tsp = 5 mls

Now it is time to sit back and enjoy one of these while my boys sleep off an active morning at the park. Yum!

 

 

Star Biscuit Christmas Tree

I don’t know about you, but the Christmas invitations are coming in thick and fast.  While they are lots of fun, it can be hard to think of food that is special, and a little bit different, to take along and share. For one party this week, the boys and I made this Star Biscuit (Cookie) Christmas Tree. The whole thing didn’t take that long to make – with my little short cuts – was lots of fun and looked really effective.

My secret to making this whole project easy was using pre-made gingerbread biscuit dough.  I bought mine from the freezer section of Ikea.

Another short cut was using this Christmas Tree Kit that I picked up for a few dollars a few years back at Kmart.

The kit comes with different sized star cookie cutters and the little wooden stand to place the biscuits on.  This made the whole thing easy to do, but of course it is not essential should you wish to give this a go yourself.  You could print different sized stars on cardboard and use these as a template to cut the dough.  Then just stack the biscuit on top of one another, using some icing to keep things from toppling.

We found the Ikea dough to be easy to roll and cut.  It baked with little spreading – perfect for our project.  We rolled the dough extra thin so the biscuits would be crisp and we weren’t disappointed. They were delicious! It was lucky we even ended up with enough left over after taste testing to even make a Christmas tree! 

After stacking the biscuits on the stand there was some debate about how best to decorate the tree.  We could have used icing or just a simple dusting of icing sugar, but my 5-year-old was adamant that a drizzle of melted white chocolate and some sprinkles was the way to go.

So in no time the tree was decorated and ready to take to the party.  It looked like it took a lot of effort but it was quick and easy. Any fiddly bits of the project were overshadowed by the fun we had when making it.

This will no doubt make an appearance again, but only after a trip back to Ikea to stock up on the delicious gingerbread dough!

DIY Christmas Pocket Book

In the hope of avoiding  the shopping centre crush at Christmas time, I have well and truly begun my Christmas shopping.

In years past, my present buying had been a bit haphazard. This year I was determined to be organised by writing a list of gift ideas and items purchased, as well as keeping my receipts in one place.

I decided I needed a pocket book in which to keep this information. Instead of going out to buy one, I made one using left over craft paper from last Christmas.

The whole thing was really simple and quick to make.

I didn’t have any double-sided paper left, so I stuck some coordinated prints together to make three,  30 x 30 cm double-sided pieces of paper. If you wanted to do this,  you could use paper or light card and alter the size and number of  sheets to suit the size pocket book you need.

I folded the base of each sheet to make a little pocket.

 

I held down and secured the sides of the pockets with a glue tape.

I folded each sheet of paper in half, using a ruler to get the folds crisp.

I stacked the pockets on top of each other and used the sewing machine to bind them together along the fold line.

This configuration of folded sheets gave me a good number of pockets to place receipts or vouchers and some blank pages on which to write my Christmas present ideas.

I have divided each spread up for the different individuals or groups/families I buy gifts for.

The front cover was screaming out for a little prettiness so my youngest helped me glue some buttons in a wreath shape on the front.

This little book now lives in my handbag. I am never without my ideas list at the shops and my receipts can be stowed safely inside straight away.

How do you keep your Christmas buying organised?

 

Back to School: Easy Freezer ‘Baking’

In our part of the world, kids return to school this week for the last term of the year.  In an effort to cut down on lunch preparations, I always do a bit of a cook up of treats for my husband and the boys’ lunch boxes.

I picked out four recipes I could freeze and doubled two of them.  These should last me a while!

I made Banana and Choc Chip Muffins (recipe here), Muesli Slice (see my post here), Lemon Slice (recipe here) and Homemade LCM bars (see Thermomix recipe here, regular recipe here.

Lemon Slice, Banana and Choc Chip Muffins, Muesli Slice

Homemade LCMs

What made this task so easy was the last three recipes were no-bake. So, in just under an hour, I had made enough treats to see me through to at least half  term.

I did have a few eager taste testers around to nibble on any piece that looked like it wasn’t going to be packed away.  The consensus was that everything was super yummy.

Do you do a big bake up for lunch boxes? I would love to hear what are your favourites to make.