Easy Flower Piñatas

Start by making a frame out of toilet paper tubes.  This will make a smallish piñata, so you might want to make several, if you are planning for a number of children.

Cover one side of the frame with paper strips dipped in watered down glue, about two parts glue to one part water, and allow to dry.

Flip the piñata over.  Punch holes in the toilet paper tube sides for hanging strings, and ribbon accents (if you like).

Cover the rest of the piñata with glue dipped paper, leaving an opening for candy.

Once all of the paper is dry (this can take overnight), decorate with tissue paper, painting on strips with more watered down glue.

Allow the tissue paper to dry.  Fill the piñata with candy.  Glue the opening closed using a glue stick, or regular school glue.

Hang the filled piñata as a party decoration until it is time to break it open.

 It's great to be a homeschooler.

Polly Pocket Type Twist and Match Craft

The craftivitiy I put together to go along with C's Polly Pocket themed birthday was a lot easier to assemble, than I think it's going to be to explain, so I'll let the pictures do as much of the talking as I can in this post.

Basically, I started, ahead of time, by finding several printable Polly Pocket type coloring sheets, that had pictures of individual characters, or from which I could cut and crop a single character out, printing them "wallet sized", marked to "fit the frame".

I cut them out, so I had four or five sets of different legs, torsos, and heads for each girl doing the craft...

...to be able to pick and choose outfits for four girls, and then assemble them onto...

...sheets of paper, cut (also ahead of time) a little shorter vertically, and a little longer horizontally, than a toilet paper tube...

I used the wallet sized printouts of the coloring pictures to divide, and mark the cut paper sheets into thirds, proportioning the sections for heads, torsos and legs, and I folded each sheet, to divide it into fourths, not including the extra longer-than-the-toilet-paper-tube bit, for the girls to use as a guide for gluing on their pieced together fashion designs onto.

Then, once the children had put together, and colored in four of the girls, in outfits of their choosing, I cut the sheets apart, along the horizontal lines, and taped the pieces around (not to) extra toilet paper tubes (one per child)...

...so they could twist and interchange outfits for each of their four girls, in a mix-and-match Polly Pocket kind of way.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Polly Pocket Microwave Mug Cakes

Running around snapping pictures of our youth group connecting with the youth team visiting from Oregon yesterday, I somehow misplaced my camera case, with the camera cord.  So, instead of the latest and greatest, I'll share a look back at our last birthday party - a very simple Poly Pocket party for C (age 6) in June.

When she asked for a Poly Pocket theme, I knew right away the old, standby, Barbie-type, bowl/skirt cake done in miniature, with individual cupcake sized cakes would be a perfect fit.  My only problem was the only "pan" I could find in the right shape, and right size, was a non-oven safe, coffee mug.  So, I started experimenting with microwave mug cakes.  They won't win any pastry contests, to be sure, but they are quick and easy.

Once I found a recipe I liked, the rest was so simple.

Mix 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of regular cake mix (we used a "Funfetti" sort), with 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of angel food cake mix, 1 teaspoon of vanilla pudding mix, and 2 tablespoons of milk in a microwave safe mug (our variation of the the Duncan Hines 3-2-1 cake).

Microwave the batter in the mug for one minute, and let the cake cool for another minute before plopping it out, upside down, onto a plate, or in our case...

...a tinfoil covered cookie sheet.

Cut a small slit, with a knife, into the top of each cake, to insert the dolls.  Freeze the cakes, dolls and all, for about an hour, to make them easier to frost...

...and frost, pretty much as you would any cake.  I was in a hurry, getting ready for VBS, so I made do with canned vanilla frosting, a little food coloring, and one can of ready to pipe on purple "frosting".  Imagine what you could do with time, talent and the proper tools.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, the weird little cakes at the back were supposed to be volcanoes for the boys, with pieces of melted Jolly Rancher lava erupting out of the top.

And, a word of warning -  food coloring does stain the plastic Polly Pocket clothing, so you might want to consider white frosting ribbons and bows for your favorite dolls, or plan to leave a gap between the doll and the colored frosting.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Science Sunday in the Early Morning

The high school youth group from our home church in Oregon is visiting our Montana youth group (which the Man of the House helps with), meaning lot's of fun, excitement, late nights, and early mornings.  It was nearly midnight last night, before they pulled into town, and we helped to get them situated into host homes around town. Then, we were up at five this morning, in order to be ready meet the teens at our church in time for a pre-Sunday school breakfast.

One unexpected bonus of being up before dawn on a Sunday morning was noticing the bright, shining planet situated just under the thin slip of moon in the eastern sky.  A quick check of Earthsky.org informed us it was Venus, and if we had been just a little bit earlier, we would have had a good view of Jupiter, as well.

The view tomorrow morning promises to be just as lovely.  I for one, plan to be up to see it with binoculars in hand.  And, thanks to the folks at Earthsky.org, when I point out the sight to my sleep-deprived children, I can even sound like I know what I'm talking about, and pack in a quick science lesson, before heading out for a day of fun.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Linked with Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

Banana Split on a Stick

I don't have any tempting pictures to lure you into this post, because these treats were gobbled up faster than I could photograph them.

It occurred to me, as I was preparing to make another batch of chocolate covered banana cream pops, that if I started out with a maraschino cherry in each popsicle mold...

...followed by a dollop of whipped cream...

...and topped with pureed frozen banana "ice cream" mixed with three or four tablespoons of pineapple sundae topping...

...along with five or six stemmed, and smashed strawberries stirred in...

...before it's spooned into the molds on top of the whip cream and cherries...

...frozen...

....and dipped in chocolate shell coating, like their plain banana predecessors, I'd have something so tasty, so like a banana split, that well...

...it would disappear, before I could even get a decent picture to remember it by.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Princess S'mores Take Two

We agree wholeheartedly with Gillian Rogerson's deliciously, chocolaty, intergalactic adventure, "You Can't Eat a Princess!"

However, we still say, a princess s'more...

...made with vanilla wafers, pieces of white chocolate candy bars, and strawberry marshmallows...

 ...roasted over a fancy, princess type, birthday candle, in front of a pink and purple pavilion, or makeshift princess tent (if you don't happen to have a pink and purple pavilion handy) ...

...well, that's another matter, entirely.

Of course, you'll want to take proper precautions with children around an open flame - adult supervision, and such.

And, in hindsight, I'd have to say this is probably a better 70° weather (or inside) story activity, rather than a mid-summer, into the 90s, sort of thing.  Our chocolate was melting faster than we could roast the marshmallows.  But then, wanna-be-princesses...

...are nothing if not adaptable, and always ready for a happy ending.

It's great to be homeschooler.

Skinny Bubble Snakes - Simple Summer

It's great to be a homeschooler.