Tutorial: Ice Treasures

I've seen these all over the blog world this summer, probably because it's just been so dang hot everywhere. Too be honest, I thought that this ice treasures activity would be a bit babyish even for Syd, but still, it looked so neat that really I'm the one who wanted to try it.

Spoiler alert: The girls LOVED it. Both girls. LOVEDDDDDDDDD!!! IT!

First thing, you have to go all around the house and collect a bunch of little things. We call this "cleaning" in our house. Syd collected orphaned game pieces, little rubber balls, ribbons, pompoms, marbles, dominoes, rubber bands, small toy animals, LEGOs, stickers, buttons and beads, and a million other things.

Two caveats: I'd thought that the fabric things, like the ribbons and pompoms, wouldn't be very cool to have in the ice treasures, but I was wrong. They were VERY cool.

On the other hand, the little things that had thin and narrow parts, like the Sorry game pieces and the teeny toy ponies, didn't always survive the excavation. Syd brought me one of each to glue back together. I was all, "Sure, baby!" and then threw them away after she'd left.

Next, get out a couple of small mixing bowls and let the kid fuss over placing every single small thing in the bowl exactly as she wants it:

Then pour water to cover the small things:

I know, I know--Syd's in a totally different outfit. I know that the girls went off to play between those two steps, but not THAT much time passed! I have a feeling that if I paid more attention to my younger daughter's wardrobe changes, I might get a better handle on our laundry situation.

When the bowls are full of water, carefully wedge them into the freezer overnight. The next day, run a little water over the bottom of each bowl, and a gorgeous ice treasure will pop right out into your waiting hands:

You totally want to take a crack at that baby yourself, don't you?

Have the kiddos walk around the house again and gather up anything that they think would make a good excavation tool. Since we're having our kitchen re-done (SUCH a nightmare, don't ask, it was a big mistake, it's going to ruin us), the kids can't get around to all the good tools, so they gathered up a drumstick, a few pieces of plastic cutlery (getting our kitchen re-done! It's been nearly two weeks! The contractor's estimate was for THREE DAYS, and we're already a thousand dollars over his original total cost estimate, just with materials alone, not even counting the per-hour fee for the guy who's taking three days to do the tile, or the two guys who just came and stood around the kitchen for two solid days and then went out and goofed around in the garage for a while, and I don't care what they say, I am not getting all the plumbing in the house replaced just to install a damn dishwasher), some scissors, and my secret hammer that I usually keep hidden from the rest of the family so that they won't take it and put it somewhere where I can't find it.

Then, you just gotta put the babies outside and let them go to town:

Seriously, both kids, big and little, LOVED this activity. They've both always had long attention spans, but they spent over an hour with all the various ice treasures that we made, and then once they'd recovered all the treasure, they spent the rest of the afternoon playing gigantic imaginative games, ranging all over the yard and the house, with all the little things that they'd excavated.

And then I called them inside to feed them microwaved instant oatmeal with frozen blueberries for dinner, using the refrigerator and the microwave which are both in my tiny living room. And then there was some kind of countertop emergency, because we don't have any, and special ordering new ones would take too long, but all the in-stock new ones are ugly, but I picked out the least ugly one anyway, but somehow the contractor wants to add on an extra 900 bucks  to those 40-buck ugly countertops to cut them to size or something, so for that money we might as well special-order the custom-cut nice ones, but then we won't have a kitchen for, like, another six weeks, and we can't afford another 900 bucks, anyway, which is over half the original total cost estimate for the entire project, which, have I mentioned, was supposed to be completely finished over a week ago, and now has absolutely no end in sight.

And don't even get me started about the fucking toekicks.

I Made Her a Shark Tooth Necklace

And she loves it!

You can check out my wire wrapped shark tooth necklace tutorial over at Crafting a Green World if you, too, have a bucket of old shark teeth just lying around, waiting to be made into jewelry.

The Egg in Vinegar Experiment Mastermind

Syd felt inspired to repeat our old favorite, the egg in vinegar experiment. After I reminded her of the simple steps, she found a glass jar, hauled the vinegar up from the basement laundry area, got an egg out of the refrigerator, carefully put it into the bottom of the glass jar, poured vinegar into the jar to cover the egg, then put all the extra stuff away--completely independently. I wasn't even in the room!

The girls kept an eye on it all afternoon and evening and the next morning--they love to watch the bubbles that signify that a chemical reaction is taking place, and they love to poke the egg in its jar and watch the shell slough off under their fingers.

The next afternoon, however, when it was time to pour off the vinegar and experience the egg in all its uncalcified glory, Syd decided that she was no way, no how going to touch that freaky-looking raw egg.

What's a hands-off scientist to do?

Delegate, that's what!

Willow, who loves textures and substances and the feel of all sorts of oddities on her skin, was happy to pour off the vinegar and caress the shell-less egg:

I know, her fingernails are filthy--you won't be surprised to learn of Willow's affinity for mud, I presume.

Syd even permitted Will to take the egg outside and perform their favorite part of the experiment:

Toss it in the grass and watch it splatter.

Then, of course, it's time to get out the hose to wash it away, and with the hose out...well, there's the rest of your afternoon, all planned out.

The Mommy Blogger Olympics

Look, somebody voted for me besides me!

I have to admit that I love these mommy blog contests, like this current one: the Parents Magazine Best Blog Awards. I'm in the running for Best Craft for Kids Blog (well, as in the running as one can be with two votes!). I don't even know what the prize is supposed to be, but I'm a writer--we LOVE to be read, we love to be read more than we love to write, some of us, and votes and accolades...well, my goodness, that must mean that one is being read, mustn't it?

Voting runs through the middle of October, so there's plenty of time to vote for me, or better yet, nominate your own blog! Or the blog of someone you love! And if you get one more vote than the one that you voted, well, then you win!

Montessori Mapwork, Now Poster-Sized!

How do you make a good thing better?

Supersize it!

The girls enjoy doing Montessori mapwork projects regularly, but in order to get a little more context into the activity, I upgraded the size of our canvas:

Each kid still colors a map of her chosen area, but then I give her a poster-sized sheet of Strathmore drawing paper and a glue stick, and she gets to glue her map onto the poster, and then add on other images around it to provide context. Some of the images, like the Ancient Egypt labels that Willow's placing onto her mapwork of Egypt, are from printables that I've collected online here and there (remind me someday to show you my organized library of homeschool printables, stored on my external hard drive), other images are from my stash of cutter texts--old National Geographics, out-dated travel guidebooks, etc.--and some images the kiddo draws for herself, such as the Great Pyramid of Khufu that Will is putting onto her poster, sand brick by painstaking sand brick:

I also show the girls where their chosen area is on our globe, and I do expect them to remember it (Will more so than Sydney, obviously), and when the girls have finished their posters, we always hang them up in a prominent position in the living room for a while:

Will actually references her Egypt poster occasionally, since Ancient Egypt is one of her current areas of interest and so she's always playing some online game or other (always gotten to from my Little Pumpkinbear Links) in which she needs to know the sons of Horus or what was contained in which coptic jar or whatever. Even Syd, who can't yet pick out any of her locations on the globe independently, can tell you all kinds of things about which animals live in Africa, and Indiana, and South America.

So there you go.

Battle of the Home-Sewn Shorts: Vintage Simplicity 2742 Pajama Shorts

I know, I have a thing for sewing pajama bottoms. They're just so comfy! I mean, wouldn't you live in pajama bottoms day and night if you could? And my kids can!

Seriously, it's nothing but living the dream over here, all day every day.

As far as comfy and cute goes, I still really like the shorts I made from the Oliver + S Bedtime Story Pajamas pattern. However, they don't have pockets, and my kid, she doesn't carry a purse--she needs some clothes with pockets!

So, I sewed Willow another pair of shorts, this time using a vintage Simplicity 2742 It's So Easy sewing pattern for children's pajamas:

This pattern included a cutting line to turn the pants into shorts, which I appreciated, especially because the length is unisex, and thus not too short (is it just me, or are most store-bought little girls' shorts way too short?).

Yes, we ate pizza at the park for lunch. Did I mention that our kitchen is being remodeled?

Unlike Syd, who couldn't give a flying flip about whether or not her clothes are comfortable for active play (she does the monkey bars in a tiered calf-length skirt and two-inch acrylic heels), Willow needs clothes that are roomy and comfortable and allow her full range of motion. These shorts are definitely roomy and comfy:

I know somebody will ask, so I'll just admit it--yes, I painted Sydney's face in tiger stripes using oil pastel crayons, per her request.

I love the pockets in these shorts, but for a pattern labeled It's So Easy, this was surprisingly tricky to sew. There's one point in particular, after you've sewn the inseams of the pants but not sewn the legs shut, in which the instructions do not mention that you need to turn the whole project 90 degrees before you begin the next step--since you're just looking at four nearly identical pieces of fabric, all sewn together in the middle, this fact is by no means obvious, and I only happened to notice it before actually beginning the next step because I happened to notice that the pocket markings, there for a later step, looked like they were in the wrong spot. That's something that anybody of any skill level could miss, and so...yikes!

And although the length is spot-on, these shorts are almost too roomy. I'm not sure how on board I am with the tendency to have gigantically wide waists on children's clothes, that are simply cinched in with appropriately-sized elastic. Since I'm sewing these near the end of summer, however, and thus the shorts are less likely to end up as trashed as the rest of Willow's clothes, perhaps I'll appreciate the ability to switch out the elastic next year to her new waist size so that she can wear them longer.

As for Willow's opinion...

She can ride her scooter in them. The seams aren't scratchy. They don't have buttons. They do have pockets. She's sold.

Modeling Marzipan (with the Kids!)

I originally bought a package of marzipan back before Willow's ocean party, thinking that I would use it to model some edible decorations for her birthday cake.

That did not happen (I may have taken a nap instead), but in the process of moving everything from the kitchen cabinets to some temporary shelves in the living room (who has two thumbs and is getting her kitchen re-done?), Willow discovered this package of marzipan, read the label, discovered how AWESOME the whole thing sounded, and asked to do it.

The whole process of marzipan modeling is actually really easy, and very satisfying and kid-friendly, since marzipan takes dye like a champion and it's super-soft to mold but holds its form perfectly. I first cut the log of marzipan into about eight pieces, and I let Willow choose a color for each. Definitely go with professional-quality gel dye here--I've not tried liquid food coloring on marzipan, but I've heard that it can mess with the marzipan's consistency.

Then you have to knead the dye into the marzipan, just like kneading clay:

This is an excellent exercise in patience and fastidiousness, by the way. Will can get a little...wild, shall we say, with food crafting, especially, but it's very important to go wash your hands well between each color, so that you don't contaminate the next color that you use, and I was pleased to see how conscientiously she did that, without even having to be reminded, for the most part.

Aren't they just gorgeous? The colors are perfect!

Now you can begin to create whatever you want with your marzipan. I explained to the girls that marzipan is more like FIMO than play dough--they're used to crafting giant sculptures with play dough, of which I have an unlimited supply, and small sculptures with FIMO, of which I usually only have a small amount, so this prepared them for the size of sculptures that would work best with what we had.

Other than that prep work, I just stood by and watched, amazed, as they had a fabulous time creating:

The girls did a wonderful job avoiding cross-contamination by not touching anything other than the marzipan as they worked, and washing their hands often, so I was perfectly fine with the inevitable ultimate fate of all those gorgeous, elaborate, colorful, beloved marzipan creations:

And that was their morning snack!

We used: