Will The Real Bread Clay Recipe Please Stand Up?

The little ones wanted to play with play dough this morning, and I've been thinking about trying bread clay, since I saw this month's Unplugged Project theme at Unplug Your Kids was bread. It seemed like a good time to give it a try.

I had a recipe from Helen Roney Sattler's Recipes for Art and Craft Materials, but I decided to check online, for other recipes too, just to make sure I had a good one. Almost all the recipes were the same (or so I thought) - 1 tablespoon of glue, 1 piece of bread with the crusts removed, and a drop of either dish soap, lemon juice, or glycerin (Sattler also added vinegar).

Martha Stewart's site called for lemon juice, so I went with that. Everyone listens to Martha, right?

We removed the crust from 4 slices of bread, and tore them into little pieces in a bowl.

Then, we added in 4 tablespoons of glue, and 4 drops of lemon juice.

As, we started mixing the dough, we discovered it was incredibly, and I mean INCREDIBLY, sticky. I had read somewhere to use lotion while working with the clay, to keep it from sticking to your hands. It took a lot of lotion.

I didn't think the dough had much promise, and it certainly was not kid friendly - which I found odd, because the recipes were most often listed under fun-for-kid type headings.

I pressed on, just in case it got better with working, and added a few drops of food coloring to the clay.

I (the children refused to touch it) managed to flatten it out, on top of lotion covered wax paper, and cut a few heart shapes out - but it was not at all a pleasant process, and I have very little hope, that I'll be able to remove the hearts from the wax paper once they are dry.


Puzzled, I went back to check the recipes, in case I had made some mistake. That, was when I noticed not all the recipes called for tablespoons of glue. Some called for teaspoons (Martha's called for tablespoons). I decided to give the teaspoon method a try, and this time I switched to dish soap, instead of lemon juice.

It made all the difference. Our new batch of bread clay, was not sticky at all, and was quite easy for little hands to work.


We did like Martha's (or one of her clever staff member's) idea to make beads by using a straw.

Even my oldest enjoyed the pleasing popping sound the clay made, as it was blown from the straw - though he has no interest in the actual beads.

Our beads will need overnight to dry, and then can be sealed with clear fingernail polish (all the sites seem to agree on that point).

But, just for the record, the correct recipe for bread clay is...

• 1 piece of bread
  
• 1 teaspoon of white glue
  
• 1 drop of dish soap
  
• 1 or 2 drops of food coloring, or paint (optional)

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Cereal Box Robins

There's an old nursery rhyme that says -

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will poor Robin do then, poor thing?

He'll sit in the barn,

To keep himself warm,

And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

It seems to be holding true here. There is definitely a north wind blowing, and promising snow. And, while I've heard rumors of robins in town already, we have yet to see any in our yard. Apparently, they are hiding out until the good weather arrives to stay.

In the meantime, we're reading Priscilla Beiz Jenkins' Nest Full of Eggs, another of the level 1, Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series. And, turning our empty cereal boxes into rocking robin cards, an idea I found on Marghanita's Nature blog, where strangely, to me, it's listed as a Christmas craft. I can see we've got a geography project ahead of us - Where do robins go in the winter?

But, for now the craft...

The girls (my youngest two ages 5 and 3), traced a couple of circles on the back of an unfolded cereal box.

I cut them out, and folded them in half.

And, since our box was orange, I also used it to cut out some diamonds for beaks, and strips for tail feathers, otherwise I could have used construction paper.

The girls added the beaks, and feathers with glue, and we pressed everything flat with cans, while the glue dried (did you know that this months Unplugged project theme is flat?)

Once everything was dry, the girls added googly eyes, and wads of red tissue paper to the robin breasts.

They look quite springy on our windowsill...

...even if the sky outside, does not.

For more story stretching arts and crafts projects for children, check out this week's stART (story+ art) link up, hosted by A Mommy's Adventures.

Or, to find more flat projects click over to this month's Unplugged Project page, at Unplug Your Kids.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Amigurumi Crochet Frog - Cute Enough to Kiss

I don't often find frogs kissable, but this little guy might be the exception.

I was actually feeling pretty clever today, for finding a crochet project, simple enough to work on with the girls (the older girls - ages 9 and 10), that not only went with our froggy mood this week, but also tied into this month's Unplugged Project theme of spheres. I continued feeling clever right up to the point where I deftly deleted all the pictures on my digital camera, including the ones of the girls working away on the middle section of the green ball (or sphere), which was to become our frog.

They're pretty new to crochet, so in total, I think they only managed about 25 stitches anyway, not because of difficulty, but more because of the interest span of their age. We did discover, that one of the neat things about crocheting a round project, is it can be turned inside out, to accommodate a left hander.

And, it is really a quick project (click here, to find the free, Lion Brand pattern). Like most amigurumi, it's almost entirely done in single crochet - great for beginners.

As for the Unplugged Project theme...basically this little frog is nothing more than a green sphere...

...with arms, legs...

...eyes, and a mouth.

And, if you like...

...a jaunty little crown.

Be sure to check out this month's Unplug Your Kids, Unplugged Project, for more spherical fun.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Spiral Rose Cookies

This months Unplugged Project at Unplug Your Kids (and yes, it's a monthly project theme now, instead of weekly), is Spiral, so I thought I'd share the spiral rose cookies we made for our remembrance tea. They'd work nicely for a Valentine's, or Mother's Day tea, too.

We were inspired to make these cookies from the beautiful Martha Stewart inspired, paper, spiral roses we saw here.

To make our cookies, we started with a half batch of sugar cookie dough, tinted pink, and flavored with 2 tablespoons of strawberry extract, in place of the 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract usually called for. It's a pity the Unplugged theme wasn't sugar cookies - we'd have a hundred posts to link!

After we had rolled the dough out, on a floured surface, we used a butter knife to cut a square for a guide, and then a spiral. Once we had the hang of the spiral, we stopped cutting the square first, and just went straight to the spiral. We also found it was easier to make short, choppy cuts with the knife, rather than trying to drag the knife through the dough.

Then, just as for the paper rose, I linked above, we rolled the spiral up, from the outside edge, in to the middle.



These cookies baked for about 15 minutes, at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

We tried adding some sugar sprinkles to a couple, after they came out of the oven, but we didn't care for the effect, so we left the rest plain, and saved the sugar sprinkles for a more traditional spiral cookie we were making at the same time, with the other half of the dough, that we'd added 1/4 cup of baker's cocoa to.


We actually made quite a few different cookies out of our batch of dough, including some chocolate roses.


You can't really have just one type of cookie for tea!

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Hand and Footprint Reindeer Craft

The theme for this weeks Unplugged Project, at Unplug Your Kids, was hand. So, the little ones, and I, put together one of our family's traditional Christmas crafts - hand and footprint reindeer. The older children seem to have outgrown the tradition, but since the two oldest now have hands, and feet bigger than mine, it's probably just as well.


We traced, and cut out two hand prints on brown paper, and one footprint on red paper, for each reindeer.



I did most of the tracing, and cutting, but the girls picked out the size of googly eyes they wanted, and the size, and color of pom pom nose. Then, they glued their hand prints to the back of the footprints, for antlers, and the eyes and noses to the front.



When the faces were dry, I added a magnetic strip to the back, for easy refrigerator display, and we were done.



It's great to be a homeschooler.

Advent Calendar Traditions - Writing Out The Christmas Story And Activities - An Unplugged Project

This weeks Unplugged Project theme, at Unplug Your Kids, was writing. I thought the timing of the theme was perfect, as this is the time of year when we're all writing. The kids are busy writing lists of the things they want for Christmas, and the things they'd like to give (but mainly of the the things they want - I mean, they are real kids, after all). And, I'm busy writing out "to do" lists.

These lists of mine are true works of fiction. You could find them in the fantasy section of your local library, or bookstore, if they ever happened to be published. Or, they might be shelved next to the volumes of Greek mythology, as I'm sure it would take an act of herculean effort to actually complete one of them. But, you have to start somewhere in a day, and making a list is where I start. At least with a list, I know if something remains undone, it's only because I didn't have time to get to it, and not because I totally forgot about it.


At the top of my list today, happened to be another writing project. That is, it's my project today, but over the course of the next month, it will become the children's project. Today, I'm writing out the Christmas story, dividing it up into 24 sections, cutting it apart, rolling up the slips, and stuffing them into an advent calendar.

We actually have three different types of advent calendars. One holds a fun Christmas related activity for each day until Christmas. Another type, holds little pieces of chocolate, to make our holidays that much sweeter. And, the last, which I already mentioned, will hold a bit of the Christmas story for each day.

Just to mix things up a little, I'm starting off with the version of the story found in Revelation 12. You know the one with the dragon waiting to devour the baby as it's being born. It's not the usual telling, but it gives a nice fresh point of view. Then, we'll transition to Luke, and end off with Isaiah, for three different perspectives on the same story.

Finally, because the children normally have a verse as part of their copy work each day, I'll have them copy out the story, little by little, and encourage them to illustrate it, as they go. So, by Christmas Day, they should each have their own, handwritten, version of the story to keep.

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.

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.