Memorial day tart

 

 Okay so mine is a little sweeter than other peoples because I used cream cheese icing. You can easily change the icing to whip cream, vanilla pudding, etc..

 

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet puff pastry (you could also do a sugar cookie dough or crescent rolls)
•  blueberries, washed
•  strawberries, washed & quartered
• Bananas (optional. I always find that the banana's brown before i can serve it- or i have to add a lemon juice to it and it's just not as good.)

• Icing:
• 
  
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup  shortening
• 3oz cream cheese
• 2 cups  powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 TBL milk
• (Can substitute all this for just whip cream or whip cream and some powder sugar, a little vanilla)

Directions:

I used only one of the two sheets of the puff pastry. put my puff pastry directly onto a parchment papered cookie sheet. It's already a rectangle. However you might have to smush together seams Bake at 400 degrees until browned

After it has cooled, add on your icing and fruit into the shape of an American flag..Or any flag...OR just jumble the fruit on! Who cares? it tastes good :)

Amelia Earhart Nails

So for my daughters oral biography report, she got Amelia Earhart. We were busy  making the aviator hat and cardboard plane  we found on pintrest. The last thing we needed was some awesome nails.

What I did was paint all her fingers blue and her thumbs white. I let that sit. On the finders we took some white and made fluffy clouds. We were laughing because I made too quick of a movement on her pinky and the cloud ended up looking a little like a dinosaur.

 I thought the airplane was gong to be tricky, but it really wasn't that bad.

 

We decided to make both Amelia's planes; The Kinner Airster and The Red Bus). I made a circle for the front of the plane and two parallel lines on either side for the wings. I let them set. Then I took some black and added the strings to the plane, the propellers and a dot for the middle. For fun in the yellow one (The Kinner Airster) has a little brown blob to act as Amelia's aviator cap to make it look like she is flying it.

All the kids at school thought it was cute, and given that these are drawing on a very petite eight year old- I think it's awesome!

Saint Patricks Day Nails

Today we celebrated Saint Patricks day at school. We needed to paint our nails (as always) for the Holiday. One hand has  shamrocks , the other hand I called dibs on and wanted to try something new. This is what we came up with:

Using a couple of toothpicks, I made a rainbow on four of her fingers (and a small portion of her thumb). Then I made a black pot and we actually had gold glitter colored polish for the top.  It may not be as fancy as some of the other amazing nail artists out there, but they are working on adult fingers :)




MY OTHER SAINT PATRICKS DAY STUFF:
Irish Soda Bread
leprechaun visit
 Cupcakes
 rice krispies
leprechaun hand
Lucky Penny neckalce
Decorations
giant cookie

Leprechaun trap

This is only our second year actually making a trap for the leprechaun. All the years before that we decorated and the leprechaun would leave chocolate coins at the end of our rainbow from our Decorations.

To make our trap this year we used an empty coffee container covered in green construction paper.
From the previous decorations we had some rainbows that we taped to the sides. My oldest made the sign "The Lucky Charm Cafe"  and drawings of different lucky charms around it as well. To get up to the top, we made used our lego ladder pieces and taped it down.

We kept the lid and taped a lego made table onto it and filled it with Lucky Charms (just the marshmallows) Then we made a flap shaped cut in it and then covered it with a welcome mat. This way the leprechaun won't know and step on it, falling into our trap.


MY OTHER SAINT PATRICKS DAY STUFF:
Irish Soda Bread
leprechaun visit
 Cupcakes
 rice krispies
leprechaun hand
Lucky Penny neckalce
giant cookie

Lucky Penny Bottle cap necklace

This will give your little lad or lass that extra bit of luck during Saint Patricks Day.

What you'll need:
Bottle caps (any glass one works. I.E: soda, beer)
Drill and a 1/4inch drill bit
Penny
Chain or yarn
Your four leaf clover  picture

I took a 1/4 inch drill bit and slowly drilled a small hole into a bottle lid Next I took jewelry wire and wrapped it around the top and then looped it to make the spot for the chain or yarn to go through.

The next step was getting the penny secured in by super gluing it into the base. After it dried I added clear puzzle glue for an even more secure hold

 

Let it set while you work on the four leaf clover part for the front of your bottle cap. When you're done glue (or mod podge) the decal onto the front. Let it set and then string your yarn or ribbon through the hole at the top.

Multicultural Week Door Decoration

As part of our celebration for Multicultural week at our school we need to decorate the doors of the classroom. When I think of Multicultural and kids the first thing that comes to mind is "It's a Small World" from Disneyland. It's both my daughters favorite rides and always the first thing we go on when we arrive at Disneyland.

To recreate this timeless classic I started at the school. I e-mailed (and in more cases physically went  up to) and found out what country or countries best represented the childs family. Then I went and printed off tiny coloring page versions of that flags along with the word "welcome" in that language.

 I colored them by hand because although it takes more time, it also costs more in ink. Something the schools do not reimburse for (nor do they give you to opportunity to use theirs, especially colored)- so I went the less expensive route.After that I took regular printer paper and cut it into 4 squares. I wrote each childs name on the paper and glued the corresponding flags to them.

BOAT and PEOPLE:

for the boat I took red and orange and gave it an angled look at the top. I lined them up together and glued them down. I then took the purple for the top.  I added a wave to give the bottom of the boat a less square look.

For the letters: I used the schools die cutter- super fun to use :)

To recreate the children on the front of the boat took all weekend. First I took different skin colored papers and traced circles using my daughters plates (salad size). From there I found the other colors I would need for hair, necks, clothes and cut them out according to the picture I found online of the kids. I didn't sketch it ( I typically don't) but that doesn't mean you can't. All you have to do once you have the head cut out it line it up over the next color and sketch around it.  I just cut it out by eying it.
When it was all cut out and glued on I used a sharpie to add the extra details.

Once the kids and words are glued on, take your name tags with the flags and "welcomes" and glue them all over the board.

Other ideas for Multicultural week include:
Having kids dress up in their cultures outfits
Potluck for either whole school or by classrooms--this is fun because you get to try new and exciting foods

Pretzel Recipe

Alright, I'm a sucker for mall pretzels. I think what makes these so amazingly delicious is: the fact that I actually let  myself submerge them in butter (just like the store)

Cinnamon & Sugar Pretzel Bites

1 package of active dry yeast
2 Tablespoon sugar (or brown sugar)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour (if you don't have you can substitute with 1 cup regular flour then minus 2 TBL)

TOPPING
4 Tablespoons melted butter
5 Tablespoons  sugar (for this part we're using sugar substitute. I  like to think that any less sugar is better) mixed with 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

In mixing bowl add dry yeast, water, and sugar. Let sit for ten minutes. Mix in flour and knead for about 8 minutes. There is something I've learned over the last few years: The stickier the dough the better the rise. I've noticed when the dough is in a perfect ball and a little more firm the end results are a little dryer.

After the dough has doubled in size, it's time to shape them. I like to cut the dough in half and then cut long strips off to form either the pretzel, or the bites.

 

Now, I made mine two ways:
My typical way is to  drop the pretzels into a baking soda bath for a few seconds before baking. The others I left like the recipe. After baking you can see the difference in color that the  baking soda ones have:

5. Place on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet and let rise for 20 minutes. (this only needs to happen when the dough is not already soft!)

6. Bake at 450 degrees for about 8 minutes.

7. Place on cooling rack dip or brush with melted butter and either sprinkle cinnamon sugar or salt onto them. They are best when served warm, if you can get that far. I was making them before lunch and started to snack. 

Original source: http://zakkalife.blogspot.com/2011/03/recipe-cinnamon-sugar-pretzel-bites.html