Holiday Scented Playdough

I have to admit that I've never made homemade playdough before. I have to say, I'm impressed! I thought it would come out greasy or grainy, but its just like the store bought stuff. Its also super easy to make. Since Christmas is next week, I wanted the playdough to smell like Christmas, so I made Peppermint Playdough and Gingerbread Playdough.

Peppermint Play-Dough

 (It really is pink, the pic is not the best)

What you'll need:

• 2 Cups Flour
• 1 Cup Iodine Salt
• 4 Teaspoons Cream of Tarter
• 4 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• 2 Cups Water 
• 3 Teaspoons Peppermint Extract
• Few drops red food coloring

~Add peppermint extract and red food coloring to water. Measure flour, salt, cream of tartar and vegetable oil into a heavy, medium size sauce pan. Pour water mixture into dry ingredients, mix well.

~Cook over low heat, stir the mixture contentiously until it begins to thicken and pull away from the sides of the sauce pan.

~ Remove the mixture from the burner. Once the mixture is cool enough to handle, kneed until consistency of playdough. Store in a ziplock back up to a few weeks.

Gingerbread Play-Dough

What you'll need:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 4 tsp cream of tartar or alum
• 5 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 2 cups water
• 2 Tbsp. oil

~Combine the dry ingredients in a saucepan.  Add the water and oil and mix well.
~Cook over medium high heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture begins to thicken and pull away from the sides of the sauce pan.
~Remove the mixture from heat and knead when cooled enough to handle.  Store in a ziplock bag when cooled to keep from drying out.  

Make a memory box

My family has a bunch of Summer Fun! goals this year, and I want both my children to be able to remember this summer for years to come. We kicked off our summer with a fun and easy craft. Memory Boxes!

Supplies:
~Paper mache box (I paid $2.99 each at my local craft store)
~Temper paint in different colors
~Stickers, feathers, gems, and anything else you'd like to decorate your boxes.


We had to wait for the paint to dry overnight before we could decorate them. My kids loved this project. Now every time we do something from our list (like go see a movie) we can put our little treasures (like a movie stub) in the box.

At the end of the summer I will put together a little photo album of all our fun to go into their memory boxes.

Gotta love free fun!

Offers free, or low cost, activities for kids. I think the best part is your kids can go and make a cute, fun art project and you don't have to worry about having all the supplies or cleaning up the mess! Check out all the upcoming activities here


Lowe's has "Build and Grow" clinics were your child can go and build all different kinds of things. Make the monster truck pictured above on Sat. June 26 at 10am. Make a ball and cup game on Sat. July 10 at 10am. You will need to register. Visit here for the the details.


Of course Home Depot has something just like Lowe's. Saturday, July 3, kids can make a periscope. On August 7, they can make a school bus pencil organizer. All the details are here.

Potato Stamps

That is a picture of my funky looking potato. To say the bag of potatoes I forgot about had eyes is an understatement! I had no plans of using these to eat, so I decided to turn them into stamps. You can do this by cutting the potato in half, then trace a shape you want. After that I used a spoon to scrape the potato away from the shape I wanted, and came out with these
It's a heart, tulip, and a blob (I was going for a cloud)
I used the bottom of a plastic water gallon as a paint tray. It has an indent down the middle which is great for having 2 different colors of paint. I used washable tempered paint.
Before you have your child use the stamp, dry the potato off as much as your can with a cloth, then have them stamp away!

Merry Mice

I got this idea from a Family Fun book that I rented from my library. I thought it was super cute and easy for my kids to do.

What you’ll need:
A piece of red and green felt
Pon poms
Googley eyes
Candy canes
Scissors
Glue

1. Cut red piece of felt into a tear drop shape. Make it as big or small as you would like. Then cut the green piece of felt into the shape of a bone.
2. Next make two small slits into the red felt closer to the rounded part. Fit the green felt threw this slit.
3. Glue on googley eyes and the pon poms to look like a mouse.
4. Last, stick the straight end of the candy cane beneath the mouse and tuck it between the body and the ears to hold it in place.


I love the way they look on my tree. I will have my kids make a few more so we can stick the on the present we’ll give to family and friends.