Elf Time 2013

Our elf arrived the other day through a beautiful elf door (AKA Little Fairy Door) and the kids are so excited. The door arrived a few days ahead of our elf Adam and the anticipation was... well lets just say they were excited.
Now its time for me to have some fun (sorry about the picture quality my new phone is on its way). I will be adding to this over the weeks so keep stopping by.

The lovely Adam and his magical door.

Riding a rocket

Poker with the ladies

Magical elf messages (This one was a huge hit)

Riding a tiny rickshaw.

Rainy day (or in our case too hot to play outside day)

Salt dough has been a revelation. Until a few weeks ago I had no idea it existed. I have made other non-edible dough but never have I seen 2 people have more fun than my kids and this dough. There is no "cooking" except the 20 mins in the oven and you most likely have everything around the house for this one. Salt, flour, oil, water. It can be that simple but then we decided to paint them. We used poster paint mixed with PVA or craft glue (Elmers) but I would recommend using acrylic paint if you have it. The glue makes it nice and shiny so I would still mix it in to the paint. If your kids are big paint wasters (yep) then maybe just stick with poster paint. Its way cheaper. This was a great activity for us because Poppy, being 7, is a little more advanced artistically than Asher who considers all activities in this world a type of smashing game. But they both had fun and can do it to their own skill level. I gave them a huge pile of kitchen gadgets like the garlic crusher, forks, paper clips, erasers, plastic bottles and lids, cookie cutters, anything you can use to make a pattern is fun. 

**I can not stress enough that this is a non toxic dough but it is in no way edible! YUCK.**

You will need 

a big bowl

the recipe

cookie/play dough cutters

kitchen/play dough gadgets

rolling pins 

a baking tray

paint

PVA glue

and a big pile of news paper

Rolled out and ready for the oven

Just out of the oven

Aren't we supposed to be painting the dough?

Some of the finished projects

Recipe
300g(10 oz) plain flour
200ml(1/3 pint) water
300g (10 oz) table salt
2 tsp oil
mix and squish until a dough forms
(adapted from the Rainy Day Book by Jane Bull)

You can play with this the way it is or shape it and bake it for 20 mins at 180º/350º. Some pieces may take less or more time depending on size and thickness.

This dough will last a couple of weeks in a air tight container. It does get softer as the salt absorbs moisture but we just added more flour.

Don't use kosher or flake salt for this or the dough will be to rough for little hands.

Poppy's Lorax Party

My daughter turned 7 last week and after much conversation we decided on a pizza and movie party with optional sleepover. The next question was which movie. I knew I needed a movie so I could figure out the theme of the cake and food. I was so happy when she decided on the Lorax. There was just so much colour and fun things to work with. So off we went and found some fun stuff for invitations. 

Then I searched the internet for ideas. I immediately found a beautiful cake that I knew I wanted to make... Pinterest of course. And a few other Pinterest finds. All in all it was a wonderful party and the girls had a fantastic time. 

I love how the cake turned out. The cotton candy/fairy floss didn't last long. It was a very hot day. 

I found these on pinterest. They were very popular with the girls and super easy to make. Just a marshmallow dipped in white chocolate and rolled in sprinkles. 

Poppy cookies for my Poppy. This is just a simple sugar cookie with lemon icing. 

Cucumber truffula trees

I found a mustache template by googling "Lorax Mustache" and then cut it out with an exacto knife. We used these on the straws and on popcorn bags and also on the goody bags.

These cake pops later became the candle holders. I was worried the fairy floss would catch fire so I decided to put the candles around the edge of the cake. 

The cake pops were a little fiddly but basically they were plain cake pops dipped in white chocolate. I was lucky enough to find these cool straws at the dollar store. I used the same mustache template just shrunk down. I then placed parchment over the template and piped white chocolate with yellow food colouring. The eyes were dots of white chocolate and I drew the pupils with a food writer pen. I just "glued everything in place with melted white chocolate.

I made the "save the trees" banner with cardboard triangles and letters I printed from a word document. I think the font was Baskerville 300pt. I punched holes and threaded it on string. And the tissue paper pompoms (I thought they looked like the tops of truffula trees) are dollar store finds. 

These goodie bags were just orange paper bags I found in the party store. I used a Lorax pumpkin carving template and just printed it the size I wanted on yellow paper. We added googly eyes for fun.

We decided to do a quick take home craft so I found these paper pots and put together this little poem from Lorax quotes and printed it to attach to the pots. The girls planted pompom marigolds and zinnias.

This is the aftermath of hours in the baby pool, planting seeds, pass the parcel, pizza making, dancing, a movie, popcorn, milk shakes, slushies and cake. These kids were wrecked.

All in all this was a great party. The next morning we had fruit and crepes with nutella. Out of 10 girls 5 slept over. Everyone was picked up on time and we were exhausted. What an experience. I think maybe we will leave the sleepovers until they are a little older but we are very lucky that these are all wonderful kids. 

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Party

My little man turned one recently and I love to throw a party. I felt inspired by the Hungry Caterpillar book and so here is what we came up with...

Cute invites

Obviously a Caterpillar cake was essential

Caterpillar food

Cookies for sure













And a few caterpillar decorations

So the garland is cheap paper plates I painted in the style of Eric Carle (meaning all splotchy and not very even) and I found a Happy Birthday sign at the $1 store so I pulled it apart and used the letters. I used construction paper for the facial features. This was a really fun project to do with my 5 yr old. She did some of the painting and glueing.
We got the paper for the table and the napkins and party hats from the Eric Carle museum. They were really cute.
On the table we had all the different pieces of fruit. 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums...
I made caterpillar sandwiches. You could put anything in them but I did ham and cheese so the grown ups had food too. The faces were a cherry tomato, with cucumber skin for the antennae and cucumber for the eyes I used the lid from a squeeze bottle for the cutter. HINT: the cucumber is difficult to stick to the tomato so they each either have to be very dry(difficult) or I used guacamole for glue. Use whatever is easiest.
We did fruit caterpillars with honeydew melon and watermelon.
The cookies were the goodie bag this time. It was a butterfly and a poppy. As for the cake well maybe that is another blog. But if I forget and you need instructions I would be happy to help. Just ask...

There was some grown up food and drinks because, well, one year olds don't care and 5 yr olds just want you to go away... hehe. So spinach pie, asparagus soup and salad. Oh and a few pink bubbles.
In truth you could really go a lot crazier than I did but he is only one so I kept it low key. But there is a Very Hungry Caterpillar board game that would be fun. We had a super cute craft planned but never got around to it. The craft was gluing really big pompoms together with giant googly eyes to make a caterpillar. You can also do it on a big craft stick (tongue depressor) for the little kids.



Kids are a gift and this is my way of telling mine I truly believe they are my jewels. It is a labor of love. And super fun! Love you P&A

Christmas Time is Here

I just love Christmas. Every year I look forward to it... the decorations, the music, the movies, the food, and of course the presents. I don't mean getting, I love making and giving them. It is so fun to make stuff for people and have them enjoy it. This year I am in the thick of my usual holiday baking (even with a broken oven). This time with a mini helper... Poppy.

She is so great helping with cookies. She measures and sifts the flour, cracks the eggs, rolls the cookies in sugar. It is so much more fun to make them with her. In years past she was just too young but now she is really interested. I encourage all of you to get your kids to get in the kitchen this Holiday season. I think it gives her such satisfaction and pride to know she helped bake the cookies and then we give them as gifts to people she knows and sees them eat and enjoy. It seems as though 5 might be the perfect age to enjoy Christmas. Old enough to understand and young enough to still believe. I am dreading the time when the Santa myth has been smashed and hope it takes a long time for that to happen. (Hello Britney on Glee) So this year around here we have baby's first Christmas and Miss P's first year really knowing about it. Choosing her own gifts for people.

My Christmakkah Tree

Note please I say Christmas and not "The Holidays". That is for my Mother. Hehe. Some years ago I my hub and I sent out some lovely hand made cards in which we wrote many different greetings and salutations. One of which was "Happy Holidays". For those of you who have family in another country not the USA I advise you do not write Happy Holidays. Because even though Happy Holidays can cover many bases including New Years it is simply not the same as writing Merry Christmas which I guess is the ONLY thing appropriate to write in Australia. I was in trouble for the next 12 months. So this year I say Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanza, Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, and Seasons Greetings. I only hope that I didn't leave anyone out.