So Much To Do, So Little Time

I really need a stop time button. I have five major art projects to finish before Christmas, and while I am steadily working on them, time is flying by!

And in case I wasn’t busy enough, my brain has a major hankering to revamp my blog. I’ve been blogging for about six months now and I want a change. Don’t get me wrong, I love my little blog but it isn’t entirely where I’d like it to be with both the look and content. So as usual, I’ve made a list of things to change, add, tweak, etc! In a perfect world, I’d love to have my re-launch for the new year. . .but I don’t want to set that goal and be disappointed. So I’ve decided to have it done by the end of January, which gives me a MUCH larger window to work with.

So besides art and blog thoughts, what have I been up to?

My almost-year-old has been on HUGE kick of lining up things like cards, blocks, Legos, anything she can find, in ‘paths’ all across the house. She is very proud of her handiwork. And then does not want to clean them up and ‘ruin what I made!!!’ *cue hysterical tears*. There are many days lately where the floor remains hidden until bedtime. Ahhh, to be three.

All my photos for the year are here!!!! I give a lot of photos as gifts, and order our Christmas cards through Shutterfly, so this was a jump-up-and-down moment when my hubs brought them in from the post office.

And lastly. . .my daughter asked me to build her a skeleton while playing playdough the other day. . .

Annnnnnd this is why I’m a 2D artist, NOT a 3D artist.

We just got our Christmas tree this weekend (since it was the ONLY weekend before Christmas that we have free) so today it’s time to spiff up the house with holiday decor! Keep an eye out for pictures later this week!

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Homemade Playdough

The other day my little miss and I decided to have a go at making our own playdough. I’ve been meaning to do this with her for awhile, and we finally got around to it!

It turned out to be not only incredibly simple, but the best consistency playdough ever – better than store-bought for sure! We made two varieties, just for fun – glitter and scented. We got our recipe via The Imagination Tree.

• 2 cups white flour
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• 1 1/2 cups boiling water (adding more in increments if needed)
• Food coloring (I used icing dyes, which are oil based, instead of liquid food coloring since the colors are more vibrant.)

First, mix together all the dry ingredients and the vegetable oil. (My daughter was so happy about making her own playdough!)

Then pour in the hot water and mix up until a sticky dough forms.

I find the icing dyes give much more vibrant colors. And the glitter was just some plain old craft glitter.

At this point, you need to use your hands to knead it into the perfect playdough consistency. This is the most important part, so keep kneading it around until it’s right – it doesn’t take long. I tossed on some latex gloves for this step because this is when I  added the food coloring. Definitely wear gloves for this part or you will have some REALLY vibrant stained hands! But don’t worry, once the color is thoroughly worked through, it doesn’t stain skin or clothes at all.

The finished products!

We decided to experiment a bit and make one into glitter playdough, and one into scented playdough. We started with glitter. This is really, really easy. Take some playdough (my missy picked the pink ball) and flatten it slightly. Pour bunches of glitter on it. Then knead THOROUGHLY. You really want to mix it all in to make sure the glitter stays in the playdough, and doesn’t constantly fall off. But once it’s worked in, you have awesome glitter playdough! It’s my little girl’s new favorite.

For our scented playdough, she picked the red ball. I added in some cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice and kneaded it all around. It did turn the red a bit brownish, but that’s just fine! It smells soooo delicious when we play with it.

I can’t recommend this recipe enough. It’s super easy, cheap, and the consistency is GREAT. Great enough that we threw out her other old playdough to replace it all with the new homemade kind! Enjoy!

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Last Week We. . .

• Built ye olde blanket fort in the living room.

• Baked some chocolate chip cookies.

• Did some serious Playdough playing.

    

• Worked on lots of artwork.

• Had my little girl’s second gymnastics class. It was Beam Week at the academy, so she got to walk on all the balance beams (holding my hands for the tall ones of course), and practice balance exercises. So fun!

• And lastly, my most favorite thing we did was make some homemade chocolate syrup. We got the recipe from Tanya over at Mystic Eyed Rambler – click here for the recipe post! I was super happy about this as chocolate milk is one of my missy’s favorite treats, but the store-bought stuff is just jam packed with High Fructose Corn Syrup. So now, we have an HFCS-free option, that is just as delicious as the junky kind. Thanks, Tanya!

Until next time,

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