How to Make a Tiny Sock Doll

To make a tiny sock doll, start with a tiny sock (how's that for a "duh"), just don't make it too tiny, or you'll end up with a fat little x, instead of a doll. The socks I used were some my three year old has outgrown, so let's say they were a size 24 months, or 2T, or somewhere thereabouts.

Cut the toe off of the sock, so the toe seam stays with it. Cut the toe piece in half. These will make the arms. Then, cut off the foot of the sock, at the heel line. And, I am sorry about a couple of these pictures, it took me a while to get the hang of shooting them at night (after the children were asleep), but being a visual learner myself, I know there are some of you out there, who would prefer a blurry picture, to no picture at all.

Set the cuff aside for later, and sew up, and stuff the arms, by sewing the length of each toe piece together, turning and stuffing them, and then sewing the ends closed.

With the heel end of the sock body pointing up, cut a slit in the bottom of the piece to form legs.

Sew the legs closed, rounding them to look like the legs of a gingerbread man.

Turn the piece inside out, and stuff it with poly-fil.

With a double thread, stitch a loose basting stitch around the body, midway between the top, and the legs.

Pull the thread tight to gather in the neck. Run an additional row of stitching around the neck, to secure the gather, and tie off. Or, poke the remaining thread through to the shoulder, and use it to sew on an arm.

Sew on the arms by whip stitching both the front, and the back sides of them to the body.

Embroider a face, and close up the head with another gathering stitch along the top edge, just as for the neck. Faces are not my strong point - so I just made two black horizontal stitches for eyes, and one red horizontal stitch for a mouth.

Your doll is now ready for clothing, hair, and possibly a house - but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to read about those - just now, I have a pumpkin pie, and a cranberry crumble cheesecake to attend to - afterall, we only have two turkeys left to put on our turkey tree!

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Making Thankyou Cards - An Unplugged Project

The Unplugged Project theme this week, at Unplug Your Kids, was thanks, which worked perfectly for us, as our birthday girl had some thank you cards to prepare for her grandparents.

Since our grandparents are far away, and could not be at the birthday party, we started by taking a picture of the birthday girl with her various presents, and dressed in her new birthday outfit. I printed one picture for each card on pieces of card stock, with the appropriate present pictured, in a 5'' x 7'' size, so they only took up half the page.

Then I folded the cards, so the pictures were on the inside, and tea stained the outsides, by dabbing them with a wet tea bag (this step really didn't add much, except to soften the blank white look of the paper). When they were dry, the birthday girl wrote (or traced), "Thanks" on the outside, and signed the inside with her love, and some drawings.

We made envelopes for our cards by cutting, and folding up paper grocery bags. We decorated them with cookie cutter and acrylic paint stamps. I would have loved to have followed, this, tutorial for sewing envelopes with a zigzag stitch, but I figured if the cards had to wait for me to set up the sewing machine, they might never get mailed. So, we settled for sealing the edges with packing tape.

And, after a quick trip to the mail box, our project was complete.

Be sure to check out the other "thanks" related Unplugged Projects, this week at Unplug Your Kids.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Farmyard / Barnyard Cake

I found the idea, and instructions for this barnyard cake, here, at the Betty Crocker site, though we made a few changes and substitutions. I have to say, that other than the standard round layer cake, this is one of the easiest to assemble birthday cakes we've ever done. It was perfect for us, since we were just having a family party, and didn't need a giant cake, but it could easily be increased with additional cupcakes, or a second layer on the barn, to accommodate guests.

To make this cake, we started out with a 9 x 9 square pan, and a dozen cupcakes made from a single cake mix. We only needed six of the cupcakes, so we put six aside.

The non-stick spray we used, failed miserably, and the cake stuck to the pan, so we had to piece it back together on the plate. But, after it spent an hour in the freezer, we were able to work with it. We set it out on a tinfoil covered cookie sheet, and trimmed the top, to give it a barn shape.

Then, we frosted it with red colored frosting. We made a large batch of vanilla frosting - about two cans worth, if you prefer the ease of store bought, and then divided it up, coloring 1/2 red, 1/8 yellow, 1/8 pink, and leaving 1/4 white.

We made lines in the frosting with a butter knife, to suggest plank siding. And, we added a tablespoon of cocoa to a little of the white frosting, and piped it on, to outline the door, and window, which we (meaning I) drew on a bit crooked, but this is a Montana barn.

We trimmed the windows with graham cracker shudders, and yellow colored coconut hay. There were supposed to be some graham cracker shingles along the top too, but I forgot to put them on.

To color the coconut, we placed it in a Ziploc bag, added several drops of food coloring, sealed the bag, and gave it a good shake. We colored about 1/2 cup yellow for hay, and for the feathers of the chick cupcakes, and 1/2 cup green, for the grass in front of the barn.

To make the animals, we gave the cupcakes a base covering of frosting. We used pink for the pigs, white for the sheep, and yellow for the chicks.

The chicks were completed with yellow colored coconut, mini M&M eyes, and candy corn beaks.

We added a blop of pink frosting to middle of the cupcakes for the pigs and sheep.

The pigs were then completed with two red mini M&M's on their sides, for nostrils, two more in brown, for eyes, and two quartered jelly beans for ears.

We smoothed down the pink in the middle of the white, sheep, cupcakes to make a face, adding M&M eyes, and a nose, and marshmallows cut in half for wool.

Finally, the animals were placed in the green coconut grass in front of the barn, and all that was left to do was clean the kitchen. At which point, all of my helpers became terribly busy elsewhere in the house.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Cat Cookies

The Unplugged Project theme (a weekly link up, hosted by Unplug Your Kids) for this week was cats. I had in mind to teach the girls how to knit kittens today, so they could get to work on some Christmas presents for their friends, but it turned out they were more in a drawing, than a knitting, kind of mood today.

Back to square one for the rest of us, I googled origami cats, and toilet paper tube cats, and cat cookies. The latter of which brought up a Flickr photo of cat cookies, that my oldest son, whose always ready for a snack, thought we should try. So, armed only with a picture, and a rather vague description of how to make them, found in the Flickr comments, we headed to the kitchen.

We started by fudging our way through the cookies. We wanted something that would taste like a sugar cookie, but would keep it's ball shape, when baked. This is the recipe we came up with.

• 3/4 cup softened butter
  
• 1 cup powdered sugar
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 1 tsp almond extract
  
• 2 1/4 cups of flour
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
  

We creamed together the butter, sugar, vanilla and almond extracts, and then stirred in the flour, and salt. We formed the dough into balls (about one inch in diameter - maybe a little bigger), pinching them at the top to form ears.

We baked the cookies for about 7 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, until they started to brown.

After they had cooled completely we coated them in a powder sugar, milk and vanilla glaze, and set them onto wax paper to harden.

When the glaze was hardened, about an hour later, we piped on chocolate frosting faces, and tails.

For more cat themed projects visit Unplug Your Kids, keeping in mind that more projects might be added throughout the week.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Can't Roll Away Can

My oldest son, and I, were googling around a bit yesterday, searching for ideas for homemade toys to make for Christmas. We didn't come up with any must make present ideas, but we did run into a try-this-at-home science toy video, with instructions for making a can, that rolls back to you, when you roll it away. That worked for us, since there's a Sunday Science link up over at Adventures in Mommydom, we were hoping to participate in today.

So this evening, after a nice long Sunday afternoon nap, we gathered our supplies, and set to work.

To make our Can't Roll Away Can, we used:

• a coffee can, with a small hole poked in the middle of the the bottom, and the lid.


• two rubber bands (only one is pictured, but we added a second one, as we went to work), our first rubber band, was thick, and shorter than the can. But, when stretched out, was just a tiny bit longer than the can.




• a wooden skewer


• a number of metal washers


• and two toothpicks
  

We used the second rubber band to tie the washers to the the middle of the first rubber band.

Then, centering the washers in the can, we used the wooden skewer to push the ends of the rubber band out through the holes in the bottom of the can, and the lid.

We secured the rubber band in place, with the tooth picks.

Finally, we rolled the can. As, it rolls, the washers inside the can, cause the rubber band to twist, storing up energy. When the can stops, the rubber band untwists, releasing the energy, causing the can to roll back. Below is a very basic video demonstration, of the can rolling away, and back again (it's my first attempt at adding a video clip to the blog).

Click here, to go to the Howcast video where we found these instructions, as well as another set of instructions for making a spool tractor, and an interesting looking paper airplane. It gives a little better explanation of the science behind the can.

Then, you might want to click over to Adventures in Mommydom, for more fun science activities.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Tootsie Roll Teddie Bears

Well, we just couldn't resist. So, here they are our teddy bears, in all they tootsie roll goodness.

Needless to say, I cleared away all of the cold porcelain clay bears, that were not attached to necklaces, for safekeeping, before we started this project. And, by the way, the paper clip loops I inserted into the bear pendants seem to be staying firmly in place, even when worn by a rambunctious three year old.

But, back to the tootsie rolls! We used our standard tootsie roll recipe, I've blogged about it before, but here it is again, so you don't have to click back.

Homemade Tootsie Rolls

• 2 tablespoons softened butter
  
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  
• 3 cups powdered sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 3/4 cup instant powdered milk
  
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
  

Mix all the ingredients together, until the dough begins to stick to itself. Then, knead by hand, until smooth, and shiny.

I gave each of the kids a clump of dough, on a sheet of wax paper, and let them have at it - after they had thoroughly washed their hands.

They started out making bears, and then switched to Kirbys, snowmen, and assorted worms. Finally, they started making regular old tootsie roll shapes. This dough is pretty soft, and a little harder to shape than the cold porcelain clay. One tip I can offer, is wash your hands often. It keeps the dough from sticking to hands quite as much.

My oldest daughter suggested they pretend they were working in a candy factory, and had to hurry to make their quota. Now, I'm going to have to look up that old I Love Lucy episode for them!

It's great to be a homeschooler.