Lobster Hand and Foot Prints

One of our rainy day summer projects

has been to make lobster hand and foot prints.

We decided to mix our paint together.

So we used orange and red tempra paint.

We didn't stir the paint, just dumped it in.

Then we dipped in the little hands

and put them on hard card stock like paper.

Ditto with the foot.

After we cleaned the feet and hands,

we took a paint brush and drew in our details.

Finally, we drew on a smile and attached google eyes.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

Making Play Silks

Play silks have been on my wish list

for a long time.

I didn't even realize you could make your own

until a stumbled on a website that mentioned it.

After visiting several sites, I worked out a recipe

with kool-aid that worked great. If you've wondered

how to make play silks, you've come to the right place.

We picked up kool-aid packets at the grocery store

and the play silks in various sizes at Dharma Trading Company.

The process takes several hours. Here is what we did...

• Bring enough water to boil (to cover silks, but don't add them yet) with a dash of vinegar. Remove from heat. Add silks and let them soak for 30 minutes.

• Mix about 4 cups of water with 1/2 cup vinegar and the kool-aid packs of your choice. Being careful to use a spoon and not your hands! Luckily, I wasn't a smurf for very long. 

• Add your scarf making sure there is enough water to cover the silk. Then cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Microwave it on high for 3 minutes.  Use pot holders to remove from microwave.

• WATCHING for STEAM, remove the plastic wrap and stir. If there are parts that didn't get stained, repeat the above process. My red and indigo need 2 more times in the microwave. Otherwise, let the silk rest for 1 minute in the dye. Then remove it with tongs to a plastic grocery bag ( use a different bag for all of the silks and watch for holes that might leak onto the counter). 

• Once you've completed all of your silks. Hang on line to air dry.

• Rinse the silks in cold water. If they bleed, repeat until they do not. My sky blue and red had to be rinsed about 10 times each. Dry on low for about 20 minutes in dryer. I put only like colors together so none of them stained the others. Then iron using low or your silk setting.

This time around I used scarf sizes. For my next project, I am going to make large squares in sky blue, green, brown, and rainbow.

I tried out a beautifully done chart to dye and my colors didn't turn out. There may be differences in the water, but I'll tell you what we did.

Sky blue-2 mixed berry

Green-3 lime green and 1 mixed berry

brown-1 grape, 1 lemonade, and 1 orange

red-3 black cherry

orange-3 orange

yellow-3 lemonade

green-3 lime green and 1 mixed berry

indigo-3 mixed berry and 1 grape

violet-2 black cherry and 1 twist

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

Summer Bucket List 2012: Week 8

This week from

our Summer Bucket List

there has been...

Worm Dissection (with Poppa)

Lobster Hand and Footprints

Out for Ice Cream

Marshmallow Castles

Marshmallow Handprints

Playing in the Rain

A Visiting Grasshopper

Chocolate Banana Melts

Sand Bucket Cake

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

Ice Cream Mini-Bites

One of my favorite things about summer

is making yummy summer foods. We decided to give these a try.

Ice Cream Mini-Bites

Ingredients:

• mini-vanilla wafers
• peanut butter
• ice cream
• chocolate chips
• canola oil
• sprinkles

1. We started with mini-vanilla wafers.

2. Then we put a layer of peanut butter on them with a small scoop of ice cream on top.

3. Sandwiched them together and put them into the freezer for about 30 minutes.

4. We melted some chocolate chips with canola oil.

5. Then poured the chocolate over the sandwiches added sprinkles.

Delicious!

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Connect with us:

Joyful Moments: The Zoo

Join us for Joyful Moments linky party at Little Homeschool Blessings.

This week we've found joy here...

What brings joy to you and yours? We’d be honored to share in it.

Joyful Moments are at the heart of our homeschool.

We'd love to see the Joyful Moments in your home. Whether you homeschool or not, feel free to join in every Thursday! Then visit the other links and see Joyful Moments from other places! Just add our button and link up in the comments.

<center><a href="http://littlehomeschoolblessings.blogspot.com/p/joyful-moments.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDDrWaQ7VbmbOr7KbtZFatHXscWpLqPoQuovjKXVYmR72e-JeBoZLJ9rUctJCXpcs-H-a5CmArxHx_NbtOIopZqRGU4R_88D-ZkEKNCvhyphenhyphenWXRyPcWZaUhHh3HaIdbDuxKNmnQv9sueO7Y/s1600/JoyfulMomentsatLittleHomeschoolBlessings.jpg" /></a></center>

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

Spanish Links for New Year

I've been planning

and searching

and trying to get things together

for school this next year.

We don't officially start in September,

but I'm about neck high in preparing.

So if any of you are putting things together too,

I have a list of some new Spanish links,

I'm going to look at:

Online Free Spanish: They have games, printables, books, music and more.
BBC's Primary Spanish: They have games, translations, videos, songs, and more.

If you are looking for free Spanish resources,
this video is helpful...

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

Flower Maze

For the last 3 years,

we've made a special garden for the kids.

The first year we tried a bean pole teepee.

Last year, we made a sunflower house.

This year we made a flower maze.

So far we have zinnias, sunflowers, and daisies.

Oh, it's complete with butterflies and bees too.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

The Beach Birthday Cake

My sweet Jo-Jo had her birthday this week.

I can't believe how she's grown.

We had a beach party in our yard.

There was a homemade slip'n'slide with lots

of soap, a water ballon sling, a pool,

the sand box, and squirt guns.

And then Jo-Jo wanted a special cake.

She found it in an old cake magazine

from Woman's Day.

I didn't have a lot of the candy that was in the orginal recipe,

but it is amazing what you can make out of starburst and gummy

lifesavers. We used some fondant and teddy grahams, too.

You'll need 1 box of cake, 2 icing cartons, teddy grahams, fondant, starburst, carmels, icing pens, lifesavers, gummy lifesavers, roll candy like tootsie rolls, and a 4 serving package of blue Jello.

Bake cakes in 2 round pans and follow the directions on the box. Let cool and then put in the freezer. Remove one of the cakes and cut out a circle from the middle of the cake. I left 1 1/2 inches on the sides and left about 1 inch of cake on the bottom. Then place the other cake layer on a serving plate and spread the top with frosting. 

Place the ring of cake on top of frosted layer. Carefully frost inside and outside of ring (be sure entire inside is coated), then frost sides of both cake layers with white frosting.

Then I put the blue wave around the edges with a flat tipped icing tip. Then put it in the refrigerator about 1 hour. To make the Jello, follow the speed-set driections. With a small ladle slowly fill in the pool. Refrigerate about 2 hours so that the pool is set.

To decorate use icing as glue:
bears-use food dye pens to draw on swim suits, eyes, and mouths

tiles-cut squares from two colors of fondant and put them on around the edges

diving boards-use the tootsie roll as a post, attach a starburst,

then put on a rolled out carmal,

use a gummy lifesaver cut in half as rails

for the small diving board-just omit the post

beach chairs-roll out starburst and cut into desired shape 

 We also made a float and beach ball out of starburst.

Two bears floated on a couple of lifesavers for tubes.

Set the decorations in place and refrigerate.

We didn't put anything in the pool

until just before we were going to eat the cake.

And the diving boards wouldn't fit with the cake cover

on top, so we put those on just before singing.

Although it turned out a little lop-sided,

it was delicious and the birthday girl loved it.

There wasn't a crumb left.

Wishing you homeschool blessings!

Bethany