Mad Scientist

This baking soda & vinegar idea is always going around Pinterest.  I'm feeling awful with a cold today and needed to occupy Robbie, so I decided to give it a try.  It turned out pretty well, he declared it was "cool, but kinda stinky" and asked if there was a way to make a big explosion.  Note to self: buy diet coke and mentos for next chemical reaction lesson.  By the way, if you are following this blog, you should come over to my new blog:  www.makinglunchspecial.blogspot.com and check it out!

I spy with my little eyes

I wanted Robbie to be able to give a gift to all his little buddies at daycare, but didn't really want to spend a lot of money.  When I saw the idea for making your own 'I Spy' bottles on the Meet the Dubiens blog, I decided to try this out.  I'm so pleased with the results.  My bottles don't look nearly as professional as hers, but I don't think Robbie's toddler friends will care.  

Step 1:  Collect stuff

Fortunately for me, my mother is a collector and was able to send me lots of little goodies to use.  Make sure your stuff will actually fit through the top of the container you are going to fill.

Step 2:  Fill bottle

I used an empty Fiji water bottle because it was a nice size and shape.  I looked all over for containers that would work.  Voss water bottles would have been great, but difficult to locate in my area.  I filled with the items above, miscellaneous "sprinkles" of sequins and confetti, and dry rice.  Be sure to leave room at the top to allow for shaking.

Step 3: Seal and Finish
We super-glued the cap of the bottle.  For added security I wrapped some electrical tape around the cap as well.  I'm less concerned with Robbie's friends ingesting the bottle contents and more concerned about them spilling the contents... 'cause y'know little kids WILL FIND A WAY to make a huge mess given the opportunity.  I took a picture of the contents of each bottle and then laminated the picture and a message together.  This was tied to each bottle.

This craft was super easy to do.  Now that I've made a few, I will be on the lookout for interesting little items for bottles and also for other containers that might work.  Merry Christmas!

Cute Lunch - A Naughty Pig

If you've never played angry birds, then you probably aren't addicted to angry birds. 

We've played.  We're addicted. Robbie LOVES to play and Sam and I watch in awe as he navigates the screens and throws birds at pigs using the touch screen on my droid.  Here is my attempt at an angry birds pig... as a... well... a sandwich.

First I took a biscuit cutter and removed the inside cutting circle (the 'hole').  I cut two pieces of bread.  I used the 'hole' part of the biscuit cutter to cut a small bread circle from the bread scraps.  I cut two smaller "nostril" holes from that circle using the small end of a Wilton metal cake decorating tip. I used the large end of the tip to cut two bread circles for ears and two mozzarella circles for eyes.

Next, I took the biscuit cutter and cut some meat and cheese for sandwich filler.  We had bologna, Colby, and mozzarella.  I took the bread ears and stuck them between the meat/cheese and "pasted" them into the sandwich using Miracle Whip.

I decided to make the pig green, so I took the top layer of bread and the nose and spread with a very thin layer of miracle whip then topped with green sprinkles.  I added candy eyes to the top of the mozz circles.  Lunch was finished off with some apple slices & caramel dip, some wheat thins sticks, and other lunchy items.

Next time I think I'll make the eyes a little wider set and maybe use mayo instead of miracle whip for the sprinkles....  I'd also like to find a way to make some birds in a way that Robbie would actually eat.... but until then... OINK!

Cute Lunch - Animal Punches

So I was telling a friend at work about my new attempts at cute lunches for Robbie and she told me she had something he would like.  The next day she brought me a dinosaur sandwich punch.  It is really amazing in that it punches the sandwich and has very little waste besides the crust.  Combined with some candy eyeballs I had left from Robbie's birthday cupcakes, we have a new cute lunch!  I've made these a couple of times now, but here is one we did one Saturday afternoon. 

Dino PBJ, 1/2 banana slices, a few cheetos, a few sweet petite pickles, and 3 baby oreos for dessert.

The dinos were such a big hit, that Sam came home from Walmart the other day with a few more punches - an elephant and a penguin.

Why, yes, elephants ARE adorable sandwiches.

Elephants, black grapes, sweet pickles again, and some chocolate & cinnamon teddy grahams for dessert... also some string cheese & juice for afternoon snack, and yogurt and pop-tart for breakfast.

Penguin PBJ, water drop American cheese punches, deli turkey, a goldfish cracker mix with a few pecans, and two baby oreos for dessert.  Yogurt & pop-tart for breakfast.  Some pears for afternoon snack.

We used to send veggies for lunch every day, but we've found that he doesn't eat them very well at school. We make sure he gets veggies each night at dinner and he seems to gobble them up at home.  We usually don't send PBJ more than once or twice a week either... but they have been a popular request from Rob since we've had the punches.  I really like our Sassy lunch containers for these kinds of lunches.

Cute lunches!  To be continued!

Cute Lunch

I am behind on blogging.  No surprise.  Life is busy and all that.

Lately I have been following two great mommy blogs, Another Lunch and Meet the Dubiens.  Both blogs feature the idea of making "bento" style lunches.  Basic idea of bento is the lunch should be "waste free" (washable containers, etc) and have a "cuteness theme" for the lunch.  It comes from the idea of a sushi bento box.  Not being a fan of fish in general, I had to look this up.  It is a kind of "to go" box with small compartments with small portions of food.  The bento lunches are frequently themed with the CosPlay or Anime - type characters.  Both of these blogs take this and Americanize it.

Here are a few of my favorites from Another Lunch :   Angry Birds Bento ,  Muffin Tin Monday Halloween, Ducky Bento

Meet the Dubiens has bento lunches and also some cute arts & crafts projects for little kids.  Here are a few of my favorites:  DIY Kid Gifts, Fall Bento Boxes, Turkey Plate.

So, inspired, I have been trying to find ways to make Robbie's lunch a little bit more fun a couple of days a week.  Here is one of my beginning attempts:

Peanut Butter and Jellies in Space

 Using some small stickers, I made my own food picks and inserted them into some peanut butter and jelly stars.  I also decorated Robbie's juice pouch with his favorite space ranger.  Cheddar and mozzarella slices were punched into tiny stars and moons.

 The peanut butter and jelly stars were a learning experience.  I made them again later in the week and they were much improved.  I found that the cookie cutter does much better if you take rolling pin and flatten the bread a little bit before you fill with PBJ and try to punch it out.  I got 4 small stars from a sandwich, but there was a lot of waste, so I went ahead an made another set.

I punched out the cheese shapes using these teeny tiny cookie cutters that my mama gave me.  I use these a lot in Robbie's lunch already because he really enjoys it.

So I thought the lunch turned out really cute.  I was super proud of it.  When I went to pick up Robbie from school that day, I said, "Tell me, how did he like his lunch?"  Then I noticed he was wearing different clothes.  I found out that actually, his classroom had had kind of a bad day.  One of the other kids had gotten sick at the lunch table and Robbie (who is a sympathetic puker) immediately got sick too and then wouldn't eat anything.  Bummer.

I duplicated this lunch again a few days later and he seemed to really enjoy it.  This kind of prep really doesn't take very long to do and it is very easy if you have a plan.  I don't see this as an every day thing, but about once or twice a week seems fun.  I also love reading the blogs listed above and looking at the pictures for ideas about not just HOW to prepare the lunch but WHAT to send.  After a while, I just run out of ideas.  Reading these blogs has given me a spark of creativity.  A few nights ago, using an idea from Meet the Dubiens, I added some sprinkles on top of Robbie's vanilla yogurt at dinner.  He was so excited!  He ended up dipping his steamed broccoli into the yogurt and really cleaning his plate.  Win for mom!

I hope I can get some more pictures and ideas added on here as I try out some fun lunches.  Thanks for reading!  :)

Superhero Room: Part 5 "The Room"

Superhero Room: Part 5 "The Room"

AKA: Come on, just show us the room already, sheesh!

(By the way, if you are interested in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4, you can link through here)

I was really excited that this little gem came in the mail today. I ordered this Superhero Cape off of etsy.com . The quality is absolutely fabulous and I would recommend it to anyone looking for this type of item. I put it away as a "surprise" for Robbie. With this new room, he has had a lot of cool surprises and I want him to really be excited for it.

So, here is the Northwest corner of the room.

Notice the superhero tin signs at the top of the room? I ordered some more online, but they haven't arrived yet. We should be getting The Wolverine, Captain America, and Spiderman really soon. I liked these signs because they weren't "scary" and intense like the modern superhero stuff. Lots of places were selling those fathead type vinyl clings, but I decided against it. I was afraid it would give him nightmares to see Batman jumping out of the wall at him. My college roommate and I had a life-size cutout of Humphrey Bogart in our dorm room that caused many a late night scream upon entering the room.... anyways....

The nightstand is actually just a little wooden crate I picked up at Michael's and spray painted black. There is a bin under the nightstand for all of Robbie's superhero action figures. You've got the Green Lantern lamp and still room for the "essential glass of water" that MUST be beside the bed to ensure sleep. The new Red Quilt and sham are really silky soft and seemed very well made.

These FUNKO Plushies were an impulse buy (also from Target) and might be my favorite thing we bought for the room. You can get lots of other characters, but at $10 a piece, I had to curb my enthusiasm and limited us to three.... but man, there are some other cuties....

Here is the southwest corner of the room. We may move these letters... We moved the coffee-table-turned-play-table from the living room into the bedroom and added some storage bins underneath.

I got the red, blue, and green bins at Target's HotSpot for $2.50 each. Can you believe they are all filled with toy cars? We also have a Thomas-the-Train Bin and a building blocks Bin underneath the table. All of these toys used to be in our living room! I took pictures of the contents of each bin and added labels.

I also added toy storage in the closet. I bought a plastic 4-tier shelving unit at Lowe's and just used the bottom two shelves. I put the other two shelves out in the sunroom. I got the red & blue baskets at Michael's on clearance. There is a grey bucket on the bottom (same one used for superheroes) from Target's HotSpot for $1.00. On the other side of the closet I bought one of those cheap "pop up hampers" to store the seemingly endless pile of stuffed animals. Plushies need to be weaned down, but I was too tired to deal with it this week.

Below is the Northeast side of the room. The blank space above the trim is where the additional posters will go when they arrive. We still have our video monitor camera up (I LOVE THAT THING) on its little shelf. My art collage is up as well. A new bright red basket for pullups that I hope we will only need for a short amount of time more.

On top of the bookcase (above) you'll see our new "Tot Clock". It is supercool. You set the "wakeup" and the "bedtime" times. The face of the clock is blue when you are supposed to be asleep and yellow when you are allowed up. It also has a button for naps (also blue) and for timeouts (red). Robbie knows that he is allowed out of his room when the clock turns yellow in the morning. To the right of the bookcase you'll see a little patch of darker blue paint.

Sam and I didn't have the heart to paint over the little marks we had made on the wall to mark Robbie's growth, so I kept the paint and turned it into a little billboard on top of one of the cityscape buildings. I painted in a little car in honor of his nursery theme.

We are probably not "done" with this room. After the final few posters arrive and go up, I may decide to change where things are or as Robbie gets older, his needs will change in the room. We'll see. But for now, I am pretty pleased with Robbie's new Superhero room and think it turned out really nice. Robbie's one complaint is that "there's not enough Batman in here, mommy... I really want some Batman...." I keep telling him that he's got a birthday coming up! In the meantime, I'm shopping around for some Batman stuff I guess! Ha!

Superhero Room: Part 4 - "The Lamp"

Superhero Room: Part 4 "The Lamp"

AKA: Well, it was a good idea at least.

(Have you read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3?)

So we have this green "banker's lamp" in our office... and I'm looking at it, thinking, maybe I could make this have the Green Lantern symbol on it! That would be cool. Right.

Using my handy-dandy Creative Memories circle cutters and paper cutter I made a newspaper mask, got out the white spray paint, and ....

OK... did you notice the gaps in the newsprint on the edges of the circle above?

Me neither... So I didn't have sharp, clean edges.

Instead I had wobbly, over-sprayed, this-looks-nothing-like-the-green-lantern-logo edges.

Crap.

So, I took a toothpick and scraped off the excess paint on the edges. The outside circle is pretty rough, but it gets the idea across, and I think that Robbie probably won't complain.

"In the Brightest Day, in the Blackest Night..."

Superhero Room: Part 3 "DECOUPAGE BABY!"

Superhero Room: Part 3 "DECOUPAGE BABY!"

AKA: I now hate decoupage and comic books

(Have you read Part 1 and Part 2 yet?)

I had these wooden letters leftover from Robbie's nursery. I had really good plans at the time to paint them in the same brown of the cars and hang them with cutesy little ribbons above his crib. Then I had a baby and forgot about them in a little JoAnn's bag in the garage. I had the idea to hand paint them each with the design of a different hero. I thought, you know, paint one red and put a little spider on it, paint one black and paint a little yellow bat signal on it, etc... then I thought about using stickers or something... then I had A GREAT IDEA! Last time at Half Price Books, I had browsed through comic books. HPB's has comic books for 25 cents - 99 cents. SO WHY NOT DECOUPAGE. Decoupage is basically applying a thin layer of glue to an item and then strategically covering it with stuff then varnishing the whole thing.

So! Supplies gathered....

Step 1: Spray Paint back sides and insides of letters and newly purchased picture frame black. This way I only need to decoupage the front side.

Step 2: Shop for comic books & buy ModPodge.

Here are some of the results.

HOLY DECOUPAGE, Batman!

O, how the Hulk wishes he kept his temper.

R you ready for some Spiderman?

As you can see above, I did Superman "B", Robin "I" and Green Lantern "E".

Robbie's "Birth Day" photo in the Flash frame.

And then there was an issue. I made Sam move a shelf he installed after the paint job and as a result we had some holes in the walls. I promised to find something we could hang over the holes so we wouldn't have to fill and repaint. I ended up making this 16 x 20 decoupage collage using lots and lots of layers of superheros.

Yes, these letters are supposed to be "whimsical".

And now I am sick of decoupage and hope that I never ever have to do it anytime soon. (Although I had another great idea using old math textbooks... maybe fall break?) If you have any interest in this type of craft, I would encourage you to watch/read some "how to decoupage" videos/info online before you start. You will get better results if you use a very thin layer of glue. Also, with regards to comic books, it is much easier to use comic books that feel like "newsprint" than the slick "magazine" style pages. You will get brighter colors with the latter but you will have to take lots of drying breaks and will most likely end up with wrinkles in your product.

Superhero Room: Part 2 - "Curtains & Valences"

Superhero Room: Part 2 "Curtains & Valences"

AKA: Don't Let the Sunshine In

(Have you read Part 1 yet?)

Has anyone else noticed the GLARING BRIGHTNESS of the sun in the early evening hours? We start our bedtime battle... umm... routine around 7:00pm. Robbie takes a bath or shower around 7, then there are jammies to put on, books to be read, etc... He is tucked in his little bed a little before 8:00pm each night. However his west wall makes the room so bright! So we decided to buy some light blockout curtains. I bought these Eclipse Thermaback curtains in Navy from Target. Let me just say that if you have kids and have trouble getting their room dark enough to encourage sleep, these babies are a hit. We still have some light coming in around the edge of the windows, but it is nearly pitch back in the room now. In fact, it is so dark we had to leave the overhead light dimmer all the way down.

Curtains? Check!

But Navy curtains didn't exactly scream superheros. What did SCREAM superheroes was the officially licensed superhero fabrics you can buy at JoAnn's or the ones you can buy online covered in bold cartooney print with giant scary superheroes popping out of the design. I decided to go with a plain cotton print - red with little blue, white, and navy stars. The stars were slightly imperfect which reminded me of the stars you see in comic book when someone gets punched in the head... sooo... I pulled out my Singer that my mom gave me and got to sewing valences.

As a disclaimer, this trim looks really crooked! But it isn't! It's the picture! Promise! The fabric is not laying flat here! I really mean it! The trim is NOT whimsical!

Superhero Room: Part 1 "The Walls"

Superhero Room: Part 1 "The Walls"

AKA: Paint Samples LIE and Painter's Tape Doesn't Stick

For those faithful followers (hi mom!) you may remember that Robbie was born in September of 2008 and that we painted his room an adorable robin's egg blue and stenciled chocolate brown cars along the baseboards. For those that don't know that: See that post "Nursery News: It is Adorable!"

Since Robbie is almost three....sniffle... we decided to give him a "big boy room" and update the theme a little. I had "A Super Idea" when I saw some superhero posters and that got me going. Picture me - suddenly a whirlwind of internet research and online shopping for superhero themes. So what I discovered is this: 1. Superhero Stuff is mostly out of my price range 2. Superhero Stuff (especially linens, etc) is pretty cheaply made and low quality 3. Superhero stuff is scary 4. Superhero stuff DIY is way above my ability level.

I had the idea of doing a city skyline on the bottom of the room, but most outlines I could find for stenciling (like I did the cars) were very intricate. Vinyl decals were an option, but they were really expensive. Then I came across a blog where a woman had redone her son's room in superheros and did a very simple skyline using large rectangles and painter's tape. I really liked the idea and decided to do that. However when I went to write this blog I couldn't find the original website ANYWHERE to give this woman credit for her idea. If anyone ever comes across it, please let me know.

We also decided to put up new curtains and valences which meant the robin's egg blue had to go. I decided to paint it a nice pale blue to brighten up the room. Enter paint samples and paint buying. Once I had it on the walls it looked like this:

Not bad... except it is not blue... it is purple... a very light bluish PURPLE. (sigh) We decided to go with it because it still looks OK, and didn't want to drop another $50 on paint. (stupid lying paint sample).

Day 2 came the skyline design. I used green "Frog Tape" because everyone said it stopped bleeds. I didn't wait the "3 weeks" curing time for my base coat because I am impatient and ready to get my little guy back in his own room and own bed, so I still had some bleeds.

My advice to you if you decide to do this is to make your buildings a little bigger than you think you want them because remember you are initially painting the INSIDE of the tape, not the area INCLUDING the tape.
You will also want to use four colors because (nerd alert), the Four Color Theorem (Discrete Math) proves that you can paint ANY planer map like your cityscape using only 4 colors so that no touching edges are the same color. (nerd moment over). I painted black and dark brown first. First I used alternated using a paint brush and I mini roller, but eventually just ditched the roller and went solo paintbrush since the areas were so small. After a couple hours to dry, I went back and gave the buildings a second coat, removing painter's tape, and freehand in any areas that needed touching up (Gaps between the brown and black where the painter's tape was that needed to be either brown or black but not background bluepurple).

Day 3: I started out by taping around the room just like day 2, focusing on the buildings that would be my new colors. By the time I got around the room the first taped buildings were already falling off the wall. The tape WOULD NOT STICK!!! @!#%! So essentially I grabbed both new paint colors and brushes, rubbed the tape back down for a building, painted it, pulled painter's tape off, rubbed the tape back down for the next building, painted it, pulled tape off, etc.... all the way around the room. I touched up missing areas as I went this time.


After a couple hours to dry, I went back and retouched any places that needed a little more coverage.

My husband pointed out that several of the buildings tend to lean toward the north side of the room... I told him that they weren't crooked, they were whimsical!!! Overall I am very pleased with the results. If I had it to do again, I might paint all four colors the same day, removing and touching up paint as I went. I think this might prevent the non-sticking tape fiasco. Walls = DONE! Now onto decorations!

A Super Idea

A few days ago I was selling some old books and DVD's at Half Price Books. While waiting on my offer, I starting browsing a

stack of vintage retro signs. They had several that were superheroes and an idea began to take root.

1. Robbie's room needs to be updated from his adorable nursery to something suitable for a NEARLY THREE YEAR OLD. (Sheesh, how can he be almost 3?)

2. Robbie loves superheroes - especially Batman & Robin.

3. Superheroes are cool.

So after a few days of planning we are ready to get started.

Prep Work:

1. Research Ideas, develop design scheme

2. Buy Posters

3. Order Superhero costume on etsy for Robbie

4. Choose fabric for new valences & paint for design

5. Buy new bedspread and toy storage

The SUPER plan:

1. Paint walls.

2. Paint "city scape" mural.

3. Sew valences.

4. Hang Posters, new "light blocking" curtains, & valences.

5. Trade out Rocking Chair for Train Table with toy storage.

6. Rearrange furniture to maximize play area.

7. Have Dan & Julie Rhine take photos of Robbie in superhero costume, frame and add to room decor.

I'll be posting as we transition to the new room! I hope this goes well.

{Insert Egg Pun Here}

I hate hard boiled eggs. I think they are gross. Slimy bland outside, chalking dry eggy inside. {blech}. So while it is rotten that Robbie is allergic to eggs, it really doesn't hinder our life too much as we are not big egg eaters. If he eats eggs, he gets hives. Too many "egg ingredient" meals in one week causes him to get rough rashy patches on his legs and torso.

But! I LOVE TRADITIONS. And darn it, if the Easter holiday calls for egg decorating, by golly, we are going to to do it. Enter the salt dough ornament. We made salt-dough ornaments at Christmas and gave them away. Robbie had a blast, so I thought we'd do it again. I used a different recipe this time, which I ended up not liking as well. Next time, I'll go back to the one I used at Christmas.

Salt dough: 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1.5 cups warm water. Mix/knead to form a smooth dough. Add more flour if dough is sticky. Roll onto floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Bake 300 degrees for an hour or until 'dry'.

Enter the biggest problem. I only roll and cut cookies at Christmas. So, what to I do for an Easter shape? I have circles, hearts, stars, stockings, trees, men, etc. I have other holidays like a turkey, a four leaf clover, a palm tree, etc, but no oval or egg. I have a cross... but I am weird about food being "religious" which is a whole other blog entry. So hunting through my cabinets, I found this:
This is a tool used for chopping nuts like pecans or walnuts. Egg shape! Awesome. So we rolled the dough. We cut out the eggs and we used a straw to poke holes in the top for hanging. (The straw poking was Robbie's favorite part.)

Into the oven with you, my little eggys.

Once they had cooked dry (about 45 min) and cooled, I mixed up some of my acrylic paints, adding white to lighten the shades and make them more "Eastery." I find that the ice cub tray is a handy little paint tool for my budding artist. I like to leave several cubes empty so he can mix his own colors.

Big concentration.

Every artist should blend, blend, blend!

At the end, everything was sort of multicolored and splotchy.

Perfect!

Adding a sprinkle of glitter makes for a shiny springtime.

Robbie was a bit heavy handed with the glitter, but hey, it was his first time and a kid's gotta learn somehow!

After the paint dried and Robbie went to bed, I pulled out the trusty clear polyurethane varnish and gave the eggs a coating. This dough doesn't last long if you don't seal it. If there is moisture in the air, they sort of swell and crumble. (creepy) Tomorrow after the varnish is dry, we will decorate them with ribbons maybe and hang them around the house. We may also mail a few out to relatives... the recipe made 16 eggs... that's a lot of eggs. Hoppy Easter! (Almost made it through without a single pun!)