More Spring Crafts

I made these wall hangings by using a dry brush technique (putting a small amount of paint on your dry brush, then getting almost all of that paint off before painting your surface) on a piece of old cardboard. The creases in the cardboard make the board look old and worn, and the dry brush technique makes the cardboard look like a distressed piece of wood. I then put a variety of things in the center of my boards, and added stickers to spell Spring. I used wire coiled on the top for one hanger, and just used ribbon in the other three. You could glue a big flower in the center of one, real or dried. You could add anything springy that you have laying around your house! This is a simple "free" craft to make. Just use things lying around!

Spring Wreath

I've been in a crafting mood since last week, so I decided to make some simple and inexpensive crafts to celebrate SPRING!!! Today's craft--a super fun foam flower wreath. I bought the foam flowers at Dollar Tree. They had the same type of foam flowers at Micheal's for five or six dollars (there may have been more flowers in the pack, but not five times more!). I also bought the foam flower/leaf stickers at Dollar Tree. The foam letters were in my craft drawer, but I'm sure you can buy them at Dollar Tree as well. I simply folded a piece of paper and stapled it to hold the SPRING letters. I stapled the wreath together, put flower stickers over the staples, and then used school glue to put Spring on. It took about ten minutes to throw together, and it was super fun. This would be a great kid craft too. It's light enough to hang with wall tack or tape (you may notice my tacky tape job on my wreath, which I'll be hiding in the back of the wreath soon... What was I thinking?) Foamy and fun! Cheap to boot! I have some other fun spring crafts coming soon...

Toilet Paper Roll Wreaths

My sister-in-law sent me a link to the blog "Creative Jewish Mom" where a woman had posted an idea for making flower shapes out of slices of toilet paper rolls and then gluing them into a wreath http://www.creativejewishmom.com/2010/06/recycled-toilet-paper-roll-wall-decor.html. Some friends and I got together and made wreaths. My friend Kimberly's wreath is the wreath with the big, bright buttons on it. They all turned out super cute, and each one was different. We found that using 9 petals on the flowers made the wreaths sturdier than fewer petals. You can embellish the wreaths with paint, buttons, scrapbook paper, glitter, and even put glue on the edges of the flowers and dip them in seed beads to make the wreath look sparkly. All you need is scissors, hot glue, white glue, embellishments, and your imagination!

Christ-centered Christmas Tree

I was trying to think of a way to incorporate the true meaning of Christmas into our Christmas tree yesterday, and I made some little ornaments that were super easy, fast, and cheap. I went to the LDS bookstore and bought a variety of small pictures of Christ. They were $.25-$.50 each. I punched a hole at the top of each one and tied a loop of ribbon and a bow. I then looked up a scripture to go with each picture, typed them up, then cut them out. For FHE we took turns pulling a scripture out of a container, reading it, then picking the ornament that went with the scripture. Then we hung the ornaments on the tree. It was super fun, and I really like how the pictures of the Savior add to our tree. We put a larger picture of Baby Jesus ($2.00) near the center of our tree, and it is gorgeous! I think I'll add more scriptures and ornaments next year. I just wanted to pass the idea along in case anyone else wanted to try it!

Thanksgiving Worksheets

Here is a link to some fun worksheets for Thanksgiving! There are pages for all ages in elementary school. There are fractions, cursive, crosswords, coloring pages, color by number, etc. http://www.tlsbooks.com/holidaypages.htm This website has lots of fun worksheets, so you can browse around while you are there. Below the Thanksgiving worksheets are Christmas worksheets. Enjoy!

Fun Websites

We're always looking for fun and educational (and sometimes just fun without the educational) websites for the girls to enjoy. I like to pass them along in case anyone else wants to check them out. We've found some fun ones this year for school....

www.nga.gov/kids/zone/zone.htm This is an AWESOME art website. Kids can make virtual collages, swirl art, and even add and remove elements from existing famous art. This is a really cool website. I tried it out to make sure it was okay for the girls, and I had a difficult time pulling myself away.

www.sciencekids.co.nz/ This website has some great science info. This is mostly for 2nd graders and up, but Jasmine (my kindergartner) enjoyed learning about the skeletal system of different animals. This is a great interactive science website. The only thing I don't like about it is the ads along the sides. Emily accidentally clicked on a link and was taken to a new website. This is a great website as long as you are close to help them see which links are ads and which are within the site.

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/ We were given this link today to go along with Emily's science lesson on amphibians and reptiles. It has movie clips of animals in the zoo, as well as all kinds of photos and info on animals. Emily really enjoyed watching the animal movie clips.

http:/boowakwala.uptoten.com/kids/boowakwala-home.html This is Jasmine's latest favorite website. We were looking for a website with music for Jazzy, and this website has fun little songs that she loves to sing along with. There are also games and cartoon clips. The animals have a French and British accent, so Jasmine sings the songs with the accents, which is rather funny. She also goes around saying "La" all of the time.

Artisan Bread

My mom and sister gave me a recipe to make artisan bread. It is from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The recipe allows you to make a batch of bread dough that can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks! You can have a fresh loaf of bread anytime you choose, and it seriously does only take around five minutes to whip up a batch.. I'll give you the simplified recipe version, so if you want further instructions, check out the book or the website http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/ .

3 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 TBS Coarse Salt (Kosher salt works well, but plain old table salt works fine too)

1 1/2 TBS Granulated Yeast

6 1/2 cups flour (unbleached all purpose flour is what the recipe calls for, but I made it with

whole wheat flour plus wheat gluten and it was great)

In a very large bowl mix the ingredients with dough hooks and an electric mixer or stir by hand. The dough will be moist. Do NOT add extra flour. No kneading, either. I know, that's your favorite part, right? Simply mix until all the ingredients become a moist dough. Allow to rise uncovered for two hours. Push down the dough from sides of bowl, cover loosely with a lid (don't seal the lid or the gasses will build up and blow the lid off) to keep dough from drying out and keep it clean. You can now store your bread dough for up to TWO WEEKS!! in the refrigerator.

When you want to bake a loaf (you can do this on the same day you make a batch as long as you have finished letting it rise first) simply pull up a grapefruit-sized piece of dough and cut it off using a knife. Sprinkle with a bit of flour so it won't stick to your hands, and quickly pull the edges under to make a round shape. Sprinkle cornmeal or wheat germ on a cutting board and put the dough on it. Dust a bit more flour on top of the dough, then cut three slashes in the dough. These will allow the free-form loaf to shape nicely while rising and baking. Let dough rest for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven during this time to 450 degrees, and put water in a broiler pan or cookie sheet to create steam. Make sure this water doesn't run dry while you are baking, because the steam is what bakes the bread and makes an awesome chewy crust. After 30 minutes put the dough on a cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes. You can make a larger loaf by cutting off more dough, but then you should increase your baking time to around 30-35 minutes. Even if the crust becomes very dark, it will not burn the middle.

This recipe will make four 1 lb loaves (made with the grapefruit-sized piece of dough). You can double the recipe, which is what I usually do because we love this bread. It slices well for sandwiches and toast, and I have used it for a chewy pizza crust as well. I'm sure you could also use it for breadsticks. This recipe is super easy, and you can have fresh bread anytime you want. As soon as you finish using the last of your dough, don't wash the bowl. Simply mix the next batch in the same bowl, and mix in the old bits from the sides and bottom of the bowl. This will help improve the taste of your bread by adding to the aged flavor.

I know this looks like a lot of instructions, but it's really simple once you make it a couple of times. Let me know if you have questions. Happy baking!