Stuff We Make

2012-02-24T23:02:00.003-05:00

Our 9 year old wanted to make clownfish popsicles using the instructions from PBSKids. However, she decided to use red Kool Aid instead of orange juice. So they are very dark red clownfish.

Crayon Wrapper Mosaics

2012-02-15T11:57:00.001-05:00

Remember how Daddy and two of his short friends peeled the wrappers off of a gazillion crayons? If I had been making crayons, the ripped up wrappers would have gone in the trash. But when Daddy's in charge, the trash becomes... art!

Our favorite nine year old patiently made these crayon wrapper mosaics!

Heart-Shaped Crayon

2012-02-14T17:02:00.000-05:00

When I came back from a weekend in Pennsylvania for our eleven-year-old's piano performance, I walked in the door to find a clean house, dinner in the crock pot, flowers on the table and happy children! (Maybe I should go away more often!) Our nine year old was so excited--she'd been making crayons with Daddy. He took a break from making alligator and leopard crayons to cast this big crayon for me, using a soap mold to make it heart shaped!

Maybe next year we'll make heart-shaped crayons for the kids to give to their school friends for Valentine's Day. This heart was palm-sized, so we'd need to find a smaller mold unless we happen upon a giant stash of crayons in the meantime! Also, we would need to create a cute little label so the crayons wouldn't be mistaken as candy. This was the first year that our kids were not allowed to bring candy to school. Luckily, I had a stash of bouncy balls, glow sticks, and kazoos I could use this year, but I'm thinking ahead for candy-free ideas for next time!

We Make Music!

2012-02-13T10:07:00.000-05:00

Suzuki Piano Book 2: Minuet 2 (Minuet in G major) from J. S. Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach

“Hacking” a Crayola Crayon Maker

2012-02-12T19:20:00.015-05:00

I got a brand new Crayola Crayon Maker at a garage sale for $3. It requires a light bulb that is not included as a heat source. However, they do include perfectly good crayons for you to break up and melt. This seems odd to me. Anyone in the target market for the product will have plenty of old crayons, but not everyone has a 60 watt small base candelabra bulb. When I finally got around to using the unit, I didn’t feel like going out to buy a bulb. So my daughter and I decided to improvise. We decided to use the molds from the set (in regular crayon and animal shapes!) and melt our old crayons on the stove in a tin can double boiler.

It is necessary to use a double boiler. DO NOT simply melt crayons on the stove. They will overheat, smoke, and catch fire. To make a spout on the can, I snipped the top about 1 cm and bent the flaps out.

If I put the can straight in a pan of boiling water bubbles will form in the concave space underneath the can and cause it to bump around. So I put a tin can lid with can opener holes punched in it. This elevates the tin can and allows the bubbles to escape without shaking the can.

I placed the lid in the bottom of an old saucepan and put the tin can with a spout on top. I then fill the pan with about 1 cm of water.

We peeled the labels off of our leftover crayon stubs and sorted them by color.

We placed the crayons in the tin can and turned the heat on. If you are going to melt different shades of crayons in the same tin can, start with the lightest shade first, because the leftovers of a darker shade will tint the following color.

I placed the mold into the holder on the crayon maker. This is a convenient way to hold the molds upright. When the crayons were completely melted, I used pliers to hold the tin can and pour the goop into the molds. When the wax was hard enough not to slosh out, I placed the molds in the freezer to accelerate the cooling process for 5-15 minutes. The crayons popped right out of the silicone molds.

How to Make Your Own Telescope

2012-01-25T16:36:00.003-05:00

This post is brought to you by our favorite eleven year old!

I had a very big science assignment to make an optical instrument and write an instruction manual. I chose to make a telescope (it was originally meant to be a Galilean Telescope, but that didn’t work out). Here’s how I made my awesome zebra print telescope!

Materials to find/buy:

A concave/convex lens. I got mine at American Science and Surplus.
A big double convex lens. I got this by buying a magnifying glass and snapping off the handle. This needs to be much bigger than the concave/convex lens.
Two mailing tubes- one should be bigger than the other, but the difference in size shouldn’t be ludicrous. It would work best if the tubes were fairly close in size to their intended lenses. Notice I said fairly- they just need to be very roughly estimated.
Foam
Cloth. Make sure it doesn’t clash with your telescope’s color.
Patterned duct tape. Preferably peace signs, zebra print, pink, or lime green, but if you’re a guy you might want something different. I suppose that you could use paint (but that’s not as cool as duct tape) or not decorate it at all (and THAT’S just plain lame).
Foamy stickers. Read Step 6 to determine if they are needed.

Steps:

1. Hold your lenses, big one farther away and little one near your eye. Look through the small lens and move the big lens closer and farther away. When you see maximum magnification have someone else measure how far away the lenses are. REMEMBER THIS NUMBER!!!

2. Now you need to experiment with your tubes. Mark a section on each tube that is the measurement that you figured out before. So if you measured 4 ½ inches, you need 4 ½ inches of each tube. Saw out these sections.

3. If you’re going to duct tape this telescope, you better do it now! Wrap the tubes in duct tape. If you’re going to paint it, wait. If you’re not going to decorate it, CHANGE YOUR MIND NOW!!!

4. Trace the outline of your small tube onto a piece of foam. Cut it out with a craft knife. Then, trace the outline of your small lens onto the circle of foam. Then cut it out with a craft knife. Yes, the tracing, NOT the lens!

5. You need to work fast at this point to prevent the hot glue from hardening before its put together. Your foam should look like a donut right now. Run a line of hot glue around the donut hole, and then quickly and carefully insert the small lens into the donut hole. Straighten it.

6. If the difference in size between the big lens and the tube is significant, then repeat step 5. If not, then stick some foamy stickers near the edge of the inside of the tube and glue the lens straight into the tube. The same goes for the small tube/lens. If you think you need to because the lens and tube are way different sizes, then use the foam donut method. If not, use foamies.

7. Wrap about 2/3 of the end of the small tube in cloth that doesn’t clash with your duct tape. I glued, wrapped, glued, wrapped, etc. Do this until there is enough cloth covering the tube that the tubes slide easily and they are snug.

8. Stick the tubes inside each other. The cloth covered end should be the end that’s farther away from your eye.

If you’re painting the telescope, you should do it now. Otherwise, happy telescoping!!!

Teaching Kids about Sound Waves

2011-10-16T19:08:00.002-04:00

For Sunday Science this week, Daddy got out the function generator to teach the kids about sound waves. David and I could hear sounds up to about 14-15 kHz and the kids could hear sounds up to 17 kHz. We suspect that Mr. Two Year Old could hear higher frequency sounds, though, as he was covering up his ears when no one else could hear a thing!

Rocket Cake

2011-08-15T19:51:00.003-04:00

I made a rocket cake for our six year old's birthday today! The big flash at the bottom of the cake is not a camera malfunction--it's six lighted birthday candles, powering the rocket for lift off!

Cake Plans: Family Fun
Recipe: Black Midnight Cake (Betty Crocker, 1991). This is my go-to chocolate cake recipe. It calls for cocoa (a staple in my pantry) rather than unsweetened chocolate (which I buy only on occasion), so I always have the right ingredients on hand. This chocolate cake is super easy and better than a box cake any day!

2 1/4 cups flour
1 2/3 sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
3/4 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups water
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs

Beat on high for 3 minutes, bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Photo Puzzle

2011-07-21T15:14:00.011-04:00

I used Mathematica to create an interactive photo puzzle using pictures of our kids!

Download the free Wolfram CDF Player to play with this interactive photo puzzle. You make a move by clicking on a piece next to the empty space.

Source code from Yu Sung Chang's PicturePuzzle Wolfram Demonstration. Also see Jon McLoone's SliderPuzzle, another cool Wolfram Demonstration.

Mulching the Garden

2011-07-21T08:05:00.004-04:00

A friend of ours gave David some spoiled hay for mulching the garden. Now our five year old really believes we live on a farm. We've got a giant garden, a raspberry patch, some apple trees, six chickens, and a freckle-faced redhead who wears his John Deere shirt whenever it's clean. I guess all we needed was a few bales of hay to make our "farm" complete!

Taylor Swift Folders

2011-07-19T08:34:00.002-04:00

Remember last year's Taylor Swift folders? Well, our favorite ten year old is at it again. Last time we laminated Taylor Swift onto a bunch of two-pocket folders. This time, our soon-to-be fifth grader is using Mod Podge to stick Miss Swift and silvery glitter on her otherwise blah 10 cent folders. Stay tuned... I noticed some Harry Potter pictures in the collage pile!

Deal of the Month

2011-05-08T20:32:00.003-04:00

We found solid 1 pound milk chocolate Easter Bunnies on sale at Walmart for 75% off. That comes out to $0.87/lb for chocolate. We bought a dozen. They can be cut up or grated for baking. Our 10 year old likes to melt chocolate and dip strawberries or pretzels in it. Much cheaper than chocolate chips!

Pot of Gold Cake

2011-03-17T15:49:00.001-04:00

It's super easy to make a St. Patrick's Day "Pot of Gold" cake! Simply make a bundt cake, frost it generously with chocolate frosting (I reserved some frosting to pipe on details like the pot rim and some shamrocks). Fill the "pot" with chocolate coins, and there you have it! So easy!

P.S. Check out our other St. Patrick's Day posts!

Leprechaun Trap

2011-03-17T15:33:00.005-04:00

How do a couple of eight year olds go about catching a leprechaun? With a little help from Family Fun!

Here's how my favorite eight year old and her buddy made a leprechaun trap!

The girls made a rainbow out of construction paper, and glued it to some cardboard from a cereal box to help it stand up better.

For projects like this, I keep some Elmer's Glue in a Cool Whip container and have the kids paint on the glue with q-tips. The wide shape of the Cool Whip container works great when more than one kid is trying to use the glue at once. I just put the lid on the container and pull it out again the next time we have a "gluey" project!

Take a look at Family Fun's Rainbow Cage Drop instructions to see how we assembled the trap! I helped the girls affix a bent clothes hanger to the back of the trap. We fastened thread to a small Dixie cup in covered in batting and strung up the cup on loop in the bent hanger. The other end of the thread is weighted down by some promotional golden coins we use for play money. You'll need something with a bit of weight to hold down the string, and the container you use for a "trap" can't be too heavy.

A Hagrid Lego figure made for a perfect leprechaun! The girls made a golden path to the treasure with vintage bastel folie that my in-laws brought back from Austria years ago. (I couldn't find a local source for bastel folie, so if you aren't in the mood to go to Europe for your kids' craft supplies, I'm sure a golden glitter path would entice the leprechauns just as well!)

I'm sure that Hagrid Leprechaun is pretty greedy... Look! I think he's about to grab the booby-trapped coin!!

P.S. Check out our other St. Patrick's Day posts!

Tie-Dyed St. Patrick's Day Cookies

2011-03-16T21:35:00.001-04:00

I'm not particularly a fan of pre-made cookie dough, but when I saw some tubes of Christmas sugar cookie dough on clearance for 50 cents, I had to snag it (The stuff didn't expire for like six months, right? Wait--I'm not going to think about that too much.)

So take some sugar cookie dough (with green Christmas trees on it), two eight year olds, and a half an hour on a Saturday morning. Set the eight year olds loose with a rolling pin and some cookie cutters. Help them with the hot hot oven...

...and voila! You've got tie-dyed St. Patrick's Day cookies!

Now all you've got to do is watch out for the sneaky leprechauns!

P.S. Check out our other St. Patrick's Day posts!

Wacky Day

2011-02-11T09:49:00.010-05:00

Eat your heart out, Willow Smith, it's Wacky Day at fourth grade today!

I knew there was a reason I had saved those rad scrunchies from 1988!!!

Vintage Baby Leopard Costume

2010-10-29T13:57:00.001-04:00

For Halloween this year, my baby is wearing a little leopard costume that my mom made for me in 1977!

My little leopard was smiling until the tin man poked him in the head with his funnel hat. Oh well! I love this picture anyway! Hermione (age 10), Jaguar (age 7.93), Tin Man (age 5), and Leopard (13.5 months).

Upcycled Workbench

2010-10-26T13:37:00.035-04:00

I made a new workbench out of an old industrial sewing machine table.

The table was in the corner of a basement full of old furniture at a tag sale. The sellers said to just haul the table away for free. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with the sewing machine attached.

I removed the motor, pedal, and large zinc diecast base. I saved the zinc for metal casting and stashed the big motor (with a pulley!).

Because of the big hole where the sewing machine sat I had to cover the top surface. The table sat in the basement for a year until I found a piece of scrap wood that was large enough to cover the table and strong enough to be a workbench top. I used a ¾ inch plywood sheet from a discarded jet engine crate. However, it had sat in the weather too long and was too rough to make a good workbench top, so I covered it with a scrap 1/8 inch plywood sheet. I screwed the ¾ inch plywood to the surface. I didn’t use any fasteners on the 1/8 inch plywood. I used cheap construction adhesive to attach both pieces of plywood and weighted them down with cinder blocks and electric motors from my stash.

I attached a lower shelf made of more ¾ inch plywood jet engine crate.

The only things I needed to buy were the carriage bolts for attaching the shelf (I didn’t have the right length in the Fastener Cabinet of Wonders) and the construction adhesive for gluing on the top. The paint was, of course, a mistint. Everything in my 2-car workshop is slowly turning olive drab. It’s beginning to look a bit militaristic down there.

You can tell the age of anything in my workshop by the color of the mistint can in use when it was painted or acquired. Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer=2000-2004, Light Chocolate Cream=2004-2007, Olive drab=2007-present.

Edible Animals

2010-10-14T11:27:00.005-04:00

At our local fair there's a hilarious "Edible Animals" contest. This year David threw together a creepy little spider...


Edible Animal Spider. Cephalothorax=Delicata Squash, Abdomen=Cucumber, Legs=Overgrown Okra!

Those jalapeño fangs bite!!! I love the triceratops David made for the fair in 2008. How's that for a creative way to use zucchini?

Edible animal triceratops made from Greyzini Zucchini

That year, when our oldest was seven, she made an Edible Animal Wasp for the kids' contest. She used an eggplant for the body, and a weird yellow squash cut in half lengthwise for the wings.

And last, but not least, I give you "Greeny the Field Snake," 100% designed and constructed, start to finish, by our younger daughter for the 2008 Fair. Not bad for a five year old!

All these silly animals remind me of a couple of books we've checked out so often, it's almost as if we own them! Food Play and Fast Food, both by Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann.

Excuse me now, it's lunchtime, and now I'm in the mood to play with some food!

Awesome Banana Bread

2010-10-13T14:43:00.001-04:00

Why does this nine year old look so tired? Well, on the day our entries for the fair were due, she got up extra early to work on just one more entry! Such motivation! Such determination! I love this girl!

She made "Awesome Banana Bread" for the King Arthur Flour Baking Contest. How did her banana bread fare at the fair?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a first place winner!

Not bad for a nine year old competing against a bunch of teenagers! All the entrants had to follow the same recipe. This banana bread was aptly named--it really is awesome! We will definitely be adding this recipe to our repertoire!

Awesome Banana Bread
Recipe by the King Arthur Flour Company
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup ripe mashed bananas (2-3 bananas)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 2/3 cups king Arthur All-purpose flour
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup of chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Grease and flour a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

In a medium size bowl beat together eggs, sugar, and oil. Stir in mashed bananas. In a separate bowl, whisk together baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour. Quickly add all the dry ingredients to the banana mixture. stir in yogurt and nuts. stir just until combined. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

Bake 1 hour. let bread rest for 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan and cool on a rack.

Scarecrow

2010-09-16T13:53:00.001-04:00

Two years ago, our little brown-eyed girl won a big blue first place ribbon at the fair for her scarecrow, "Cowboy Cupcake."

His mustache is above his nose--isn't he great?! I love his wristwatch and his cupcake belt buckle. We can't wait for the fair this weekend!

Birthday Train Cake

2010-09-09T22:32:00.004-04:00

For my baby's first birthday today, I tried out my new Nordic Ware Train Cake Pan.

I was impressed that the detailed little cakes released from the pan so easily. Phew! I decorated this cake super fast, before rushing to get the kids off the bus and heading off to piano lessons.

My little buddy boy liked his train cake...

...and the little cupcake-sized cars were perfect for him to cram two-handed into his mouth all at once!

For a larger party, I think it would be fun to make a loooonnng train cake. It could wind all over the place if you really went crazy. You could even pipe the names of individual guests on each train car. The train cars are about the size of a large muffin, so each little cake is just the right size for one party guest! Also, I'm thinking about a Christmas train cake, a Spooky train cake... How about a Love Train cake?!

Lightsaber Jello

2010-09-08T16:54:00.003-04:00

David made this rad lightsaber jello for our five year old's birthday!

Here's how you can make your own lightsaber jello:

1) Measure the inside of your refrigerator. When you know the diagonal length of a shelf in your refrigerator, you'll know how long you can make your lightsaber! Our lightsaber blade (minus the hilt) was 22" long.

2) Construct a jello mold using cardboard and foil. Cut a piece of cardboard to the length of your lightsaber blade, with a width of about 7 inches. Make sure that the corrugated cardboard lines run along the length of your cardboard piece. Make the mold U-shaped by bending the cardboard using the edge of a countertop or table, like so:

2) Make cardboard ends for the U-shaped mold and fasten them on with masking tape:

3) Roll two small cardboard tubes to prop up the U-shaped mold.

4) Tape the tubes to the outside of the mold to keep it upright.

5) Line the mold with at least two layers of foil. You may also want to line the refrigerator shelf in case the mold leaks a little.

6) Fill the mold with jello. Follow the JELL-O JIGGLERS recipe: a ratio of 1 1/4 cups of boiling water per large (6oz., 8 serving size) pack of jello used. We used three large packs of red jello, with 3 3/4 cups of boiling water. I use a large Pyrex mixing bowl to measure the water. I microwave the water right in the Pyrex bowl, and stir in the dry jello until dissolved.

7) Cover and chill the jello overnight. Prepare a large, foil-covered piece of cardboard for a serving tray. Remove the outer cardboard mold and carefully invert the jello onto the foil-covered serving tray. Peel away the foil to reveal your super cool lightsaber blade. Do this setup just before serving--the jiggly lightsaber won't stay firm for too long!

8) Figure out what you want to use as the hilt of the lightsaber. We used a small flashlight to light up the blade of the lightsaber! Anchor the flashlight to the cardboard tray so it doesn't roll around. To do this, we poked four holes around the flashlight and threaded plastic wrap through the holes like so:

9) Present the jiggly lightsaber to a smiling, red-headed five year old. Put him on the school bus and he'll tell all his kindergarten friends about his fabulous five year old birthday!

Looking for more Star Wars party ideas? JustJennRecipes and Make and Takes are two great places to get started!

Iron-on Lamination

2010-09-01T17:18:00.001-04:00

Our nine year old jazzed up her plain old two-pocket folders with pictures of... Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood! To keep T. Swift and Carrie from getting too beat up in fourth grade, I decided to laminate them.

We have a little laminating machine that's excellent for thinner, narrower projects up to 9" wide and not thicker than card stock. I had never figured out a way to laminate larger, more bulky projects at home, though. This seemed like a good opportunity to experiment.

I started by slitting a laminating pouch in half, taking care to place the shiny (non-adhesive) side out. I covered T. Swift and Carrie with a piece of laminating pouch, followed by a sheet of wax paper to protect my iron. I used a regular household clothes iron, set on the acrylic/nylon (dry) setting, and ironed away!

The results were not quite as shiny as when I use my laminating machine, but I'm glad my laminating hack worked! We asked Carrie what she thought about going to fourth grade, and she said, "It makes my heart happy!"

Books without Words

2010-08-30T16:09:00.000-04:00

I tricked my kids into reading stories to each other. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!!

A couple of weeks ago we were having a slow day. Our marathon trip to New York City with cousin Emily had tired everyone out. The kids were sitting around the table eating lunch and grouching at each other. We needed something to change the mood--Fast!

Do-it-yourself storytelling! That's cousin Emily's custom window paint in the background!

I grabbed the first library book I could find, and the kids moaned, "Aww, Mom! That book doesn't even have words!" "Hey, no problem," I thought, and I continued anyway. It was a nifty looking picture book called Chalk, by Bill Thomson.

I started ad-libbing a story about a kid named Herbert to go with Thomson's illustrations. Soon, the kids were begging to tell their own story! I handed the book to my nine year old next. She began,

"Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, and Dean Thomas were walking along the road to Hogwarts. It was raining. Suddenly, they came upon a strange green statue of a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon. It had Albus Dumbledore's hat in his mouth...."

I never knew books without words could be so exciting! To tell you the truth, if I had realized Chalk didn't have words, I probably wouldn't have checked it out. I just grabbed it for that beautifully plastic dinosaur on the front cover. It's a great book, though! Even our five year old, who's not reading on his own yet, could join in on the storytelling fun. As for baby brother... he laughs when everyone else is laughing!

Now I'm on the lookout for more books without words. What a great, quick way to change a crabby day!