I am sure that it is no surprise to my readers that I love pasta crafts. They are my favorite. As I have told you before, I have more pasta boxes set aside for crafting than I do for cooking. Here are 20 fun pasta crafts that you can do with your kids.
The wonderful thing about doing crafts with my daughter is watching her creativity grow. Lately she has been taking the lead in what kind of crafts we do. A couple of nights ago before bed she told me that she wanted to make boats out of milk cartons. After I stopped grinning from ear to ear at her suggestion, I told her that we would do it the next day. Unfortunately, the recycling was taken out before I got home & our milk cartons were gone. We will have to wait a few more days or so until we finish another carton of milk, but in the meantime we can still make our boats.
Pasta Sailboat Crafts
Break up 4-5 pieces strands of spaghetti to form the shape of your boat. Glue them into place with glue.
Form waves using elbow macaroni & wagon wheels for port holes.
Let the glue dry for a few minutes before painting. Mai & I painted our pictures side by side.
Mai painted her boat & added a few extras. She painted in a black sun with rain, a jumping fish & a purple bat. She did a great job.
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For Mother’s Day last week a work colleague gave all of us mommies a giant chocolate bar. I love chocolate of course, but am not a fan of plain chocolate. I wanted to make some sweet treats with the chocolate, but wasn’t sure what to do. I often refer to myself as a junk cook because I love to just grab random leftover junk & throw it together just to get rid of it. Last night was a good night for that & my daughter loves cooking with mama. The measurements are random because they are leftover ingredients, but my junk bars came out pretty good. My husband says they taste like a Twix bar.
Ingredients:
1 7oz chocolate bar
12 marshmallows
1 /8 cup of margarine
1 1/2 cups of graham crackers (chopped)
1 cup of chocolate cheerios
Directions: Melt the margarine over low heat. Add marshmallow & stir until melted. Add the chocolate bar. Remove from heat & mix until marshmallow & chocolate are melted. Quickly add the graham cracker & cheerios. Press into a pan. I used an 8X6X2 pan. Refrigerate & then cut into squares.
We went through many Cheerios. Mai was having so much fun with them, we used up most of the box.
Luckily for Mai, an accident the next day kept her in the food fun.
While I was work today, I received a text message from my husband. The text went a little something like this..”Do you know why there was a box of spaghetti open on both ends?”
Oops! I knew already that this was my fault. Sorry honey. But as the saying goes “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” So that is what we did. Daddy gave her a bowl and a handful of the spilled pasta. Mai was happy playing with the spaghetti while I was at work. When I came home I saw the big bowl of the uncooked pasta & remember something that I had seen before. I had a styrofoam cone laying around & stuck the dry spaghetti into it. We took some of our stale Cheerios from last nights food fun & our little tot had another activity to keep her busy. This is such a wonderful way to teach hand-eye coordination & as you can see my daughter loved it.
So what else can we do with all that floor pasta?
How about spaghetti art?
Who knew Cheerios & spaghetti could be so much fun?
I love decorating for the holidays. Nothing fills me up with Yuletide cheer more than surrounding myself with all things Christmas. It is not just the Christmas tree & mantle that gets adorned in our house, our meals get a makeover for the season as well.
Don’t let the cookies have all the fun. Here are some fun & easy ways to dress up everyday meals for the holidays.
Gingerbread Man Shaped French Toast
One of the quickest & easiest methods for adding a festive touch to ordinary foods are with cookie cutters. French toast can easily be transformed into the shape of a gingerbread man with one press of the cutter. Mai loved this. She thought they were cookies & gobbled her toast right up.
Snowman Mashed Potatoes
This was achieved with 3 russet potatoes. Peel, wash & cube potatoes. Add to a large pot of boiling water & cook until tender. Drain potatoes & add 1/2 cup of milk, I use 2 chicken bouillon cubes in lieu of the butter, mash ingredients together. Add 2 eggs & 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup of bread crumbs, 1/2 tsp of garlic salt & a 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese & mix well. Let cool slightly & roll out 3 balls of varying sizes. Roll formed balls into parmesan cheese & form your snowman shape & place on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 400 for about 15-20 minutes. Add carrots & peas as a garnish.
Candy Cane Spaghetti Bake with Meatballs
Cook spaghetti & add your favorite sauce. Use two tubes of seamless sheets of bread dough or crescent dough. Roll out both tubes blending together the sheets vertically. Cut out a candy cane shape about 3 inches wide. Using a fork, scoop out spaghetti & place on the dough. Spoon out extra sauce over the spaghetti to add the red to your candy cane. Roll out the excess dough & cut into strips and lay across the top of the pasta in a diagonal pattern to form candy cane stripes. Using a knife push the dough into the side of the cane & smooth out the sides of the dough. Bake according to dough directions.
Rudolph PB & J sandwich
This is a 2 minute meal that the kiddos will love. Use one piece of bread, cut out an oval shape for the head & spread with peanut butter. Add a rounded teaspoon of jelly to the add the nose. Use the rounded top of the bread as ears & spread with jelly. For the eyes use two chunks of banana & 2 raisins. Pretzel stick will finish off the reindeer as antlers.
Santa Pancakes
One pancake, topped with banana, icing & 2 M&M minis for eyes. Form a nose out of banana & the mouth and hat from strawberries. Top with whipped cream for the beard & fur trim for the hat.
Happy holidays! Enjoy.
Share some of your fun Christmas creations. We would love to see them.
Related Topics:
http://foodandeverythingelse.me/2013/12/16/candy-cane-cocktail/ http://basilandbaizel.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/crazy-christmas-cookie-sunday/ http://hooplapalooza.blogspot.com/2013/12/candy-cane-and-pinwheel-cookies.html http://www.adashofsanity.com/2013/12/snow-flake-peppermint-bark/
