Blog Carnival - Make It From Scratch

The latest edition of the Make It From Scratch blog carnival is published.
The host site this week is Po Moyemu - In My Opinion. Visit her blog to see all the great entries.
My contribution was my post about our visit to the Farmer's Market and the stuffed peppers that we made. Other entries run the gamut from recipes for gnocchi, cream puffs and how to make your own buttermilk to ideas for safe alternatives for common household products. Lots of craft ideas too - kid's fisherman knit sweater pattern, kid's craft recipes, monogrammed lavender bags and ideas for homeschooling - hands on learning.
This carnival is a lot of fun and a treasure trove of great ideas. Don't miss it!

The Farmer's Market

We have been making an adventure of the Saturday Farmer's Market this summer.
The market is held on the town green - there are animals to visit, honey to taste, home baked cookies to sample and bunches and bunches of vegetables to buy.

This Saturday we arrived in time to watch our favorite farmer unloading her crates of vegetables from the back of her truck.
We chose beets with the greens still attached (washing and then cooking both the greens and the beets was lots of fun). We bought yellow squash and zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers for Grampy and three giant bell peppers to make stuffed peppers for our dinner.

We used the crock pot to cook our stuffed peppers.
Maya used the potato masher to thoroughly blend the ingredients for the stuffing -
a basic meatloaf mixture of:
3 slices of stale bread torn into little pieces and soaked in
3/4 cup of milk combined with one egg
1/4 cup chopped onion
and 3/4 lb. lean ground beef
while I cut the tops off the peppers and cleaned out the insides.

We set the seeds aside on a paper plate to use later on, then stuffed the peppers with the meat mixture.
We poured just enough tomato sauce into the crockpot to cover the bottom of the dish,
put in the stuffed peppers and poured the remainder of the jar of tomato sauce over them.
The peppers stayed in the pot for 6 hours on low heat and then they were done!

While the peppers cooked, we decided to do an art project to remember the fun we had cooking our vegetables from the farmer's market. We got out our paints and painted a couple of sheets of construction paper green, like the peppers.
Once the paint was dry, we drew two large peppers on the green painted paper and cut them out. Then we painted those green peppers with white glue, covering all of the paper peppers. We did that so that the seeds we saved from the insides of our real peppers would stick to the paper. We set the paper peppers aside for the rest of the afternoon to dry. That night we had a super dinner and some new decoration for Grammy's kitchen!

Summer Knit and Crochet

It's raining, or maybe it's not, but it's hot and humid and not a good afternoon out of doors. Sometimes Grandmother wants to just sit and knit. Or crochet.
I came across a project today that combines that much needed break from the weather with an idea for giving.

Arkansas Children's Hospital is now conducting it's annual Knitting for Noggins Knit-a-Thon with a goal of 30,000 knit or crochet hats by the end of October.
If you live near the hospital in Arkansas, you can attend the Knit-a-Thon there on October 14th.
Or you may want to host your own Knit-Together with your friends and create hats for the hospital. Go to their website to download a party kit that includes everything you need to host your own Knitting for Noggins party, including a flyer and printable invitation.
And of course, working on hats on your own is the perfect way to spend a summer afternoon.
Visit their website to find guidelines and addresses to send your hats.

Arkansas Children's Hospital, a place of care, love and hope, is a non-profit, private hospital, dedicated to helping children live healthy and productive lives. It is the only pediatric hospital in Arkansas and one of the largest in the country. The staff consists of more than 500 physicians and a 3,500 member support staff. The campus spans 26 city blocks and has a floor space totaling over 1,200,000 square feet. In the last year, the emergency room, outpatient and specialty clinics had more than 250,000 visits from children, not only from Arkansas, but throughout the world. The hospital has many one-of-a-kind pediatric specialists and is licensed for 280 beds.

Arkansas Children's Hospital is a world leader in many areas of care, utilizing leading-edge treatments, state-of-the-art facilities and aggressive research and development.

You'll find a good assortment of free patterns for knit and crochet hats at these sites:

Crystal Palace Yarns

Headhuggers

Five For Friday - It's Raining Again!

Instead of complaining about the rain (since it seems we're going to be stuck with it anyway), why not choose projects, crafts and activities to Celebrate the Rain ?

Links to five pages of ideas to get you inspired:

Preschool Educations Arts and Crafts for any weather

A to Z Kid's Stuff - Rain

Preschool Express with Jean Warren (my hero!)
The Magic of Rain

For Older Children (grade school) a unit on Weather and Rainbows

Step by Step Childcare has five pages of their own ideas for a rain and umbrella theme including a related books list!

Lion Brand Yarn - By Kids For Kids Newsletter - July 2007

There's a great project in the Lion Brand Yarn's Kid's Newsletter this month -
Natural Dyes from Edible Items
I've used natural dyes for Easter eggs a few time, but never for yarn. (Guess what we'll be doing soon?)
Here's a portion of the newsletter, I know you're going to want to subscribe for yourself!

By Kids, For Kids: July, 2007
Natural Dyes from Edible Items
Creating your own dyes can be a fun and exciting way to personalize projects. This month, we show you how to make all-natural dyes and use them with different cotton and wool yarns.
We used only edible items purchased at our local market, boiling water and (in some cases) salt to make beautiful, all-natural dyes.

After trying our dyes, you will probably want to experiment with other natural food dyes of your own. Start by using fruits or vegetables that stain and experiment! You can mix dye baths to make different colors. You will probably find, as we did, that the colors are all -- surprise -- "earth" tones!

Because this project requires boiling water, adult supervision is required.

If you are not already a subscriber to BK4K, click here! It's free!

Selecting Your Yarn Different fibers absorb dye differently. We found that:
1.The all-wool yarns -- Lion Wool and Fisherman's Wool -- took color much more easily than the cotton yarns;
2.The soft pastel shades of the cotton were very pretty but very subtle -- much like the colors of home-made fresh fruit ice cream;
3.In some cases, the same dye produced one color in the wool yarn and a quite different color in the cotton yarn.
4.There was very little difference between the way the different wool yarns took color, but the Fisherman's wool fluffs up a bit more after handling;
5.There was very little difference between the way the different cotton yarns took color.

Your Equipment
1.Cutting board and knife;
2.Stainless steel or enamel cooking pots;
3.A stove;
4.If you are using beets, a grater;
5.A clock or 1-hour timer;
6.Tongs or spoons for handling yarn in the dye bath. If you plan to do several colors, make sure you have a different utensil for each so you don't accidentally contaminate your dyes;
7.Some place to hang the yarn to dry;
8.If you are making more than one color, index cards or labels to put with the yarn while it is drying so you can remember what is what.
9.Recommended, not required: a notebook to document your work. Use this to take notes about the materials, the process times and the results. Samples of the yarn are helpful, as are pictures. Having this information makes it easier to repeat a particular color.

The Dyes The colors in wool are different from those in cotton, but they are both pretty! (Wool is on the left, Cotton on the right)



Turmeric We found turmeric in the spice section of the market.
Click here for the recipe.




Skins of Yellow Onions We saved and used the skins of a dozen yellow onions to make this beautiful warm brown.
Click here for the recipe.




Grape Juice We used frozen juice and got this beautiful dusty-rose color on the wool and soft lavender on the cotton.
Click here for the recipe.




Beets The pink dye is not colorfast, but it is so pretty in the cotton that we can't resist telling you about it! If you make something out of it and wash the item, you will have to re-dye it after washing.
Click here for the recipe.

They've also included some patterns to use with your newly dyed yarn -

So now you've have some beautiful naturally-dyed yarn, what next? Using just one ball of the natural vanilla and one dyed a bright yellow with the turmeric recipe above, we made this fun retro purse set -- a VERY 60's holder for dark glasses, for a cell-phone and for small change or other little necessities.

Subscribe to the Newsletter Here!

New From Highlights For Children - 10 Fun Indoor Crafts To Beat The Heat

We're moving into those Dog Days of summer - too hot for the kids to be playing actively out of doors in the heat of the afternoon, but you don't want them sitting around in front of the television either!
Highlights For Children has come out with a great issue this month with ideas for crafts and activities to enjoy while staying cool.

These Magnetic Messages have a lot of creative possibilities.
They offer a fun way to enhance literacy skills along with the opportunity to encourage family communication.
You can't beat that!

I'm liking this Rocking Duck too!
An easy decoration made from paper plates and colored with markers (an older child might enjoy using paints ) a flock of ducks would be a great addition to anyone's summer decor!

But my favorite is the handmade dulcimer.


The Appalachian, or Mountain, dulcimer is a musical instrument
developed in the United States in the 1800s from dulcimers brought to America by European immigrants. Like a guitar, it is made of wood and has a
sound hole for the strings to pass over. The dulcimer can have three or four strings and is played by placing it on your lap and strumming the strings. This version, designed by Jessica Gates is made from a shoebox and rubber bands.
If your child finds that he really enjoys playing the dulcimer (like I do!), you can easily move up to a more advanced, but still inexpensive corrugated cardboard instrument from the company that I purchased my first dulcimer from more than 20 years ago.
Backyard Music.com has premade dulcimers and dulcimer kits and when you're ready you can upgrade once more to a beautiful wooden instrument like I have now!
This is a summer activity that can lead to a lifetime of beautiful musical expression.

Celebrate!

Only a couple of days left before the 4th of July Holiday –
Not really time for anything too elaborate (save those ideas for next year), but here are some good links that you may still find fun and useful.

A Kid’s Heart
has some neat online games – I really like the Patriotic jigsaw puzzles.
Use your mouse to drag the puzzle pieces into the correct places to put the puzzle together.
There are quite a few other games, some word searches and virtual fireworks too!


Family Fun has the directions for these Uncle Sam Ice Cream Cones


and for Fireworks Art (my kids loved this one! Take a hint from a teacher – poke a hole near the top of the straw.
The kids will still be able to blow the paint out to make the project, but they won’t get a mouthful of paint if they forget and suck in instead. And they will forget. Trust me)

A very easy Fireworks “painting” that the littler kids enjoy is done by painting a piece of black construction paper with white glue that has been thinned with a bit of water.
Let the kids shake multi colored glitter onto the wet glue, shake off the excess glitter when the paper is dry.
Sparkly and pretty!


Betty Crocker has this great Stars and Stripes Cake

Please come back tomorrow –
I’ve been given permission to display the Flag Picture Gallery from Ushistory.org.
Beautiful and Fascinating…

Super Simple Collage Making

Making a collage is one of the best free form art techniques for artists of any age - preschoolers love it. The choices of items to collage with are limitless. We've used colorful bits of yarn and ribbon; snips of cloth or colored paper; rice and pasta in different shapes; grasses, leaves and small stones gathered from nature walks. We've torn pictures from magazines and newspapers, cut figures from greeting cards, sprinkled glitter and sequins and colored sand.

The trick is getting it all to stick on the paper and stay stuck!

That's where the secret comes in to play...
We use self-adhesive contac - type paper.
A good size square, taped sticky side up to the table works wonderfully.
(Tape it to keep it from sliding around and also to keep the child from picking the paper up and sticking it to itself - and if it's not taped down, the child surely will...)
The self-adhesive paper needs no drying time and will hold material that is heavier (like pasta) without a problem.

This is our collage of yesterday - using snips of foil ribbon, sequins and beads.
Lovely!

June Craft Activities from Highlights Kids

Kids will love working on these fun, free craft projects from HighlightsKids.com. Each craft includes full step-by-step instructions.

Patriotic Treat Holder
This decoration is "tops" as a centerpiece for your July Fourth picnic table.

Color-Wheel Whirligig
Save up your plastic
"to-go" lids and make
a fun and colorful toy

Click Here to see more of this month's Craft Activities from Highlights Kids

Countdown to Father's Day

There's a little time left to craft a nice last minute gift for Dad -
or maybe you'll find something you'd like to make for next year!

Father's Day at Kindercrafts

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

We've been walking to the duck pond often in the past few days-

we're trying to find them again-

the caterpillars we found last year.

Until we do - Check out our Monarch Butterfly Project of Summer 2006

Father's Day

Tomorrow Maya's daddy is coming to celebrate an early Father's Day with Maya.
Today we made a picture of "Maya's Garden" as a gift for him.
We used:
*construction paper - blue, green and white
*foam flower stickers (we happened to have some, we could have just as easily cut flowers from more construction paper)
*glue
*scissors

First we made the butterfly by tracing around each of Maya's feet on the white paper. We made the leaves by tracing around her hands on the green paper. I got busy cutting out the hand/leaves while Maya began to color her butterfly. (We left the footprints uncut on the white paper for easier coloring) When she was done, we cut out each of the footprint/butterfly wings. We drew a caterpillar with back marker on the blue paper and glued the footprint/wings on either side. Then we glued the handprint/leaves onto the paper too. Maya peeled the paper from the foam flower shapes with tremendous determination (and if I was still teaching I would say she was honing her fine motor skills - blah,blah...blah,blah) She showed the same meticulous concern in placing each flower and each circle on the butterfly "just so".

We had fun doing this project. Maya is proud of her work and eager to show Daddy when he comes in the morning. I think her Daddy will treasure the garden of hands, heart and soles of his little girl.

Father's Day Crafts

It's time to get going on those Father's Day gifts!
This page of Father's Day craft ideas from Michael's has everything you need -
from preschool crafts to adult creations.