homemade Archives – The Pinterested Parent

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homemade

Wed
14 ^th

A Piece of My Heart Homemade Ornaments

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Whenever I look at our Christmas tree, I have to smile. Slowly over the years, all of our beautiful glass bulbs have been being replaced one by one by homemade keepsake ornaments. Our tree is filled with so much love and memories.

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My daughter has been insistent that our tree doesn’t have enough ornaments this year, so we have been working on filling it up. Salt dough ornaments are our favorite. With cookie cutters and paint, there are a million possibilities. We had an idea to press puzzle pieces into our clay to make these “pieces of my heart” ornaments.

Thu
25 ^th

Homemade Butter With Kids

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It was our wedding anniversary last weekend. We wanted to celebrate our anniversary weekend together with the whole family.

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We went away for a family weekend. We took our daughter to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. It was a lovely look at life in the 1800’s.

We got to take a horse-drawn carriage ride, see how yarn was made & pretend to churn butter. Our butter making play made me want to churn some butter for real. It reminded me of when I was little and churned butter on class field trips.

I wanted to teach my daughter how to make butter too. Thank to Google & PBS Kids, I was able to find a simple way to make butter with my little. Did you know that you can easily make homemade butter by shaking cream in a jar? Well you can & it is delicious.

The recipe called for a jar, but we chose to use a shaker cup to make our butter.

We added a carton of heavy cream to our shaker & shook in a little salt. We put the lid back on & began to shake.

My daughter helped shake for a few minutes, but quickly got tired & handed it back to mommy. It is a lot of shaking, so if you are doing this with a few children, it would actually be perfect because each could take a turn for a few minutes.

The recipe that we saw said that it would take about 10 minutes, but ours did take a little longer than that, although we did stop many times throughout the process to make observations about the butter.

It was a great arm workout for this mommy. The shaking was fun, but what happened during the shaking was the most interesting part.

The cream hit different forms during the shaking. We stopped & looked at our cream often to see what changes were made. It was fascinating. The first stage was foamy. The cream start foaming & expanding in the shaker cup.

We shook a little longer & the butter started taking on the form of whipped cream.

When it took on the whipped cream form, it became a little more difficult to shake, but after shaking a little bit longer, it began to sound watery again. We checked the mixture & could see the buttermilk & butter starting to separate. We kept shaking and then poured the buttermilk through a strainer into a bowl. We drained the butter well. The strainer will catch the butter, but we were able to scoop most of it out of our shaker with a spoon.

I covered the butter & then refrigerated it until I was ready to use it. We made some toast & tried out our homemade butter. It was delicious. We also used the buttermilk to make fried chicken with later that same evening.

From what I understand, homemade butter does not last too long, so extend the life of your butter by mixing some water into it after the butter is already formed.

The homemade butter is definitely worth making. It was wonderful. I will definitely make it again, but perhaps next time use a beater.

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Thu
24 ^th

Salt Dough Mosaic Frames

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We love clay & play dough projects in our house. My daughter just can’t get enough of it. We make new dough every week, sometimes even a couple of times a week. We are just about settled into our new home, but are still missing pictures on our walls. I thought it would be fun for us to make some homemade frames together.

We started with a simple clay recipe.

2 1/2 cup of flour

1 1/4 cup of water

1 cup of salt

1 Tbsp of oil

1 Tbsp of cornstarch

Mix all the ingredients together & then knead with your hands. My daughter always loves this part. You may need to add less or more water.

Roll out your clay.

Cut a few long strips out of your dough & then cut into small squares.

Cut out a shape for your frame & then cut out the inside window. Use a photo as a template to know how big to cut your window.

Lightly wet the top of your frame. Press the squares on top until the frame is covered. Press the squares in enough so that they stick. For my frame, I etched designs in with a toothpick. Since Mother’s Day is nearing, I thought that a Mother’s Day themed frame would be a good choice. Mai chose to draw in her designs after.

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Bake for 1 hour & then flip your frame & bake for another hour. Depending on the thickness of your frame, you might need more or less bake time. When hardened, remove from the oven & let cool.

Paint your squares with acrylics or glaze.

After the paint dried, Mai used a marker to draw in her designs. She wanted to write letters & numbers on hers.

Glue yarn or a ribbon to the back to hang & glue a picture to the back. (We used crazy glue. Let adults apply crazy glue.)

My daughter was so proud of her finished project. She asked that both be hung in her room.

Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.

Mon
25 ^th

Homemade Watercolor Paints

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Mon
07 ^th

More Homemade Christmas Ornaments

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This year because of our living circumstances we will only be putting up a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. As all of our ornaments & decorations are buried in storage until after Christmas, my husband suggested that we hand make all of the ornaments for this tree. Challenge accepted. We already have made a few here & there throughout the season.

Last night we made a couple more for our tree. My daughter loves Hello Kitty & since she is such an easy figure to make, that was our first project of the night.

What you will need:

A medium-sized plastic Christmas ball

Cotton balls

White, yellow & black foam sheets

Red felt

Black pipe cleaners

Hot glue & school glue (Always operate caution when using. Not recommended for small children to use)

Directions

Stuff the inside of the ornament with cotton balls until jam-packed. My daughter loved this. This is a great fine motor skill activity too.

Cut two triangles for ears out of the white foam. Put glue on the front & back and cover in a light layer of cotton.

Use the hot glue to glue ears into place. For best results apply glue to the ear not the ball.

Cut 2 black ovals out of the foam & one yellow one. Cut a pipe cleaner into six equal pieces & cut a bow out of the red felt. Use a Sharpie to draw in detail on the bow.

Glue all pieces into place using the hot glue. Buy hooks for your ornament or use a pipe cleaner or string to hang.

We made one more ornament.

Mai loves to draw & I adore her drawings. I wanted a hand drawn ornament for our tree.

For this ornament, I drew & cut out 2 identical ornament shapes out of an old cardboard food box.

I glued them together with a loop of yarn in between.

I painted the top portion silver & let it dry.

I glued the ornament down onto a piece of red construction paper & then cut the excess off to form a circle. I did this for both sides.

I cut two smaller white circles & gave them to Mai. I asked her to draw on both pieces.

While she drew, I added a bead of glue around the edge of the ball & sprinkled glitter on it. It gives it a lovely sparkly outline & covers up the seam where the cardboard & the paper meet.

When she was done drawing, I glued her drawings on both ends. This picture is of the whole family looking out the window. I will treasure this one forever.

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