Rainbow Play Dough Love Fest

Goes something like this: "Hey, girls, I made something like ten pounds of rainbow play dough. Want to go to the park and play with ALL of it?"

Boy, did they!

I sell play dough by the pound, including this rainbow play dough set, in my pumpkinbear etsy shop. Whenever anybody orders some, I make another ten pounds for my girls.

Play Dough Portraits

a recent sunny day, I brought out all of the different kinds of play dough that I've been cooking up recently, and Sydney and I had ourselves a private little play dough party, culminating in an etsy play dough photo shoot, complete with light tent and sunny window. It was a Play Dough Portrait Party!

We shot green pine-scented play dough:

 
 Pink peppermint-scented play dough:

 
 
 
 And naturally white, unscented play dough:

 
 
My favorite part of making a big batch of homemade play dough is dumping the essential oil and coloring on top of the finished play dough into my Kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook inserted. I turn the mixer on high and let it knead the dough smooth, blend the color, and infuse the essential oil, which wafts throughout the entire house while it's working. A few days ago a friend came over and commented, "Your house smells so good!"

Yeah, it's from the play dough I made a week ago. Fringe benefits, you know.

Busy Little Beaver Gets Her Just Dessert

Most of the time I am a total mess, but sometimes, very rarely, I am so organized and pulled-together and crazy-awesome-perfect that I impress MYSELF, friends. For instance, in the past two days, I have made dryer lint modeling dough with the girlsand then I wrote a tutorial for it on Eco Child's Play. I took the kiddos to the park oncetwiceand thriceand while I was there I took some product photos of the holiday quilt that I then listed on etsy. I answered a billion student emails and taught a class on gender stereotypes, although I did break my own heart by harshly reprimanding my secret favorite student (he deserved it). I completed the birthday buntings for oneand two of Willow's little kid friends

and I did that even though Sydney refused to nap today (curse you, daylight savings! Curse you, MyManMitch!). I fulfilled my civic duty

with both children in tow, and I smugly noted to myself, having compared the early voting fervor to the pointless Y2K mass hysteria, that there was absolutely zero line, that the staff was efficient and effective (except for my ballot judge, who was utterly incoherent in her explanation of the voting booth--"And so you...do all this...and when you're done there's some more...and if you write-in you do like that [odd hand-wave]...okay". It turns out that she'd fainted about ten minutes prior but, upon being revived, had insisted upon getting right back to work. Yeah.), and that they gave the girls both stickers and animal crackers. I took the girls to storytime at the public library and then organized their library books

in a new space that Handy Matt created by moving around some bookshelves and hauling a third out into the yard; it will join all the stuff he hauled out of the garage on Labor Day, which he STILL HAS NOT REMOVED!!!!! And, I just finished writing a tutorial for Crafting a Green World on painting vinyl records, a project the girls and I did together this morning before voting and storytime.

Yep, I'm awesome. Except, you know what happens when I'm so studious and multi-tasky and organized and productive? My immune system rebels. And I get a cold. Which is why I'm sitting here at office hours all stuffy and runny and achy, but you know what? I'm still staying up late with Matt tonight to watch election returns and drink champagne.

Go Barack!

To Do

So now that I'm done with my big craft fair, and luckily have just enough left over to make for a good display at the final local farmer's market craft fair next month, I have vowed to make nothing else to sell until I work through at least some of a very long list of things I need to make for my own babes and big guy:

1. Dinosaur T-shirt quilt for the girls' bed
2. Star Wars T-shirt quilt for Matt
3. Winter pajamas for the girls
4. These booties: My theory is that I can resize the pattern to make winter slippers for the whole family.
5. Huge felt board, with felt cut-outs, for the girls' playroom
6. Curtains for the girls' playroom
7. Dino quilted wall hanging for the bathroom of the girls' playroom
8. At least two birthday presents for at least two special kiddos in my girlies' lives
9. Headbands for Willow
10. Tied tutu for Will's little girlfriend
11. New pattern templates for my growing girls, based on my most favorite book, Short Kutz
12. Halloween costumes
13. Little girlie winter pants out of old sweatshirt and sweater sleeves
14. Lasagna gardens for next year
15. A good scrub for all the grungy house using the recipes from my other most favorite book,
16. Kid-made Halloween decorations
17. Mom-made Halloween decorations!
18. Must try dryer lint modeling material!
19. Rain barrels!
20. Scrapbooking at least some of the backlog--there's a big backlog

And that doesn't even include all the randomness, such as this brown pillowcase sitting on my desk that is begging to be made into a pillowcase dress for Sydney even though she doesn't need another pillowcase dress, and if I make a pillowcase dress for her, I might as well make one out of this black-and-white pillowcase for Willow, but I could then use the leftover material to make matching headbands, and that counts for my list...

In other news...I didn't have a chance to ask Willow to talk about this art that she created this morning, because she worked on these two pictures literally from the moment she got up and grabbed an adult (one of whom only wanted coffee, the other of whom only wanted a shower) to get her "markers and beautiful paper" to the time that I told her, "Listen, get some pants on or we are going to miss the bus to the library!"

Any interpretive thoughts?

Rainbow Play Dough: A Tutorial

As the girls get older, they tend to get themselves invited to some snazzy birthday parties. I've got a go-to list of birthday presents--on the super high end, you get a handmade quilt, if I'm on my way to your party right now, you get two blank puzzles at a pitstop at Learning Treasures, and if I was sick as a dog the day before (I'm as sanitary as the next person, but I seem to get the stomach bug A LOT--faulty gene? Lousy immune system? Seriously, I got the stomach bug when not even my breastfeeding toddler did. Weird.) but I have a little time right now, you get my personal favorite, handmade play dough. Let the party begin.

Handmade Play Dough

1. Make your stove and counter top look nice and pretty-ish:

Eh. Good enough.

2. In a small pot, mix together 1 cup flour (the bleached white stuff--I buy cheap flour only for this), 1/2 cup salt, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar, one cup water, 1 tablespoon oil, and your food coloring. The cheap food coloring works, but you can get some amazing colors with professional-grade food coloring.

3. Heat slowly while stirring continually.

4. When the dough becomes solid rather than liquid and tends to ball up in the pot, remove it from heat and pop it on a plate to cool off. While it's cooling, you can wash the pot out to cook up another batch in another color, but while your back is turned, I warn you, the baby might get into the professional-grade food coloring: Hello, yellow poop for the next three days!

5. When the dough is cool enough to handle, knead it some to finish mixing it and to get the right elastic consistency. You can also knead in some glitter, if you'd like, or an essential oil to scent it.

When you're finished, you should have enough play dough both for this--
--and this: Happy Birthday, Phillip!

And so how was the party, you ask? It went like this:
Um, yeah, it was awesome.