Make and Takes

Recipe Link Love: A Few Tasty Finds

Marie — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:13:29 +0000

I couldn’t resist sharing a few tasty finds I’ve stumbled across. There is some great cooking information and delicious recipes, see below! Do you have any fabulous finds to share?

Oh, oh, oh! This Honey Apple Peanut Butter Tart by Picky Palate couldn’t be more inviting (pictured above). Other than a quick trip to the store for puff pastry, I have all the other ingredients. So easy!

I love this informative Guide to Cooking Terms by Redhead Recipes. It has those hard to spell, probably French, cooking words all explained.

I’m a huge fan of cake mix cookies and I just found this new one over at Tidy Mom for Lemon Burst Cake Mix Cookies (pictured below). It uses whipped cream as an ingredient, where I usually see oil. So I’m very interested to try it this week.

I’ve just discovered this crafty lady, Daisy Janie, and found that she cooks too. Here’s a recipe for her Aunt Jane’s Nut Roll. My favorite part of her blog is on her side bar she has a column listed “Make Take Bake” – right up my alley!!

I love these cute Art Pancakes by The Paper Pony (pictured below). How simple are these, just letting the letter cook for a moment longer on the pan. So fun!

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Homemade Volcanos Erupting Red Hot Lava

Marie — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:41:26 +0000

We made a fun volcano out of homemade playdough, a bottle, and some red hot lava. Okay, it may not have been hot lava, but those towns people didn’t know what hit’em! They were soaked in colored baking soda and vinegar, it might as well have been hot lava!

Supplies for Homemade Playdough Volcano:

playdough – easy playdough recipe
empty plastic bottle
tray with edges, lined with tinfoil
baking soda & funnel
white vinegar & red food coloring (optional)
plastic toys (optional)

1. First prep your playdough. You could use pre-made playdoughs or even baking clay, but we just used this great recipe I’ve shared for homemade playdough. I added all 4 of the food coloring colors to help give it this brown/gray look. Since we were not going to save this forever, I decided that this type of playdough volcano was perfect for our creation. If you want to save this, you may want to consider a clay that can be baked.

2. Mold your soft playdough all around your bottle, trying not to leave any holes. Leave the top open for pouring. Let this playdough harden overnight. Our playdough didn’t end up cracking, but there is a chance that it might after it’s hard. Maybe that will just add to the effects though.

3. Once your playdough is hardened, you can leave your volcano bare, or place a fun scenery around the tray. We have a giant kitty, lego towns people, a few dinosaurs, and a princess. They are in for a treat!

4. fill the bottle with 1/3 cup baking soda. I used a funnel to help get the baking soda into the hole.

5. For a fun red look, put several drops of red food coloring into your white vinegar and swish it around.

6. Once your baking soda is in the bottle, you can pour your vinegar into the volcano. There is no real set amount of vinegar you use. It needs to be enough to fill up the bottle to allow the baking soda to bubble up and over. We ended up using almost all of our vinegar along with our 1/3 cup of the baking soda, as we watched it again and again. Watch our fun video to see how our volcano erupted!

We had so much fun with this volcano, making it erupt over and over. All of us, maybe not the princess and big kitty, were having a blast!

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Spending the Day at Disneyland

Marie — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:40:51 +0000

Thanks to Disneyland, we were given tickets to come and spend a day at the greatest place on earth! We’re a little bit of a nerdy Disney family. Maybe not as much as my friend Oh Amanda, but we would move in if they let us! See the t-shirts (nerdy), and my husband is also decked out in Mickey-wear behind the camera! We try to make our way to Disneyland every other year and we usually go for a whole week (more nerdy) as we want to make sure to do everything. So when we went to California this past summer, we only had one day to spare at our precious Disneyland and we had to make the most of it. Here are a few tips and tricks I picked up that helped us spend our day at Disneyland.

Do a little research before. If you’re able to do a little research before you get there, then you can schedule some of your day. Find out where you want to eat, what characters you really need to meet, and what are the absolute must for rides. We made sure to get in the top 2 rides from everyone’s wish list. A fabulous website with some great information about Disneyland, the ins and outs of it all, is Just Spotted. Those ladies have done a lot of research themselves and can give you some advice.

Wear good shoes. You’ll be walking a lot, as you’re trying to go fast to get from place to place, so you’ll want a good pair of shoes! We have a mix of Skechers, Buster Browns, and Keens. These style of sandal/shoe is a great choice for walking all day and in the heat.

Download the Ride Max program. The Ride Max program is a website that has a form you fill out, choosing your list of desired rides, and then it calculates the day’s schedule for you. It tells you what rides to go on at specific times and even schedules in a few breaks. All the work is done for you, totally worth the $14.95 it costs to use. We were able to get in every single ride we wanted, and some with time to spare. Which was good, as we were also using Disneyland’s ride share program as we had our toddler with us.

Have you been able to do Disneyland in just one day? What’s your favorite thing to do?

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After-School Snacktime Containers

Marie — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:48:21 +0000

If your kids are like mine, they are coming home from school ready for a snack. Well, we’ve turned some fun school boxes into containers to hold those sought after snacks. Head on over to BabyCenter for all the details!

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Your Toddler Will Love This Edible Finger Paint

Heather — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:41:22 +0000

Sometimes playing with your food is a good thing! Mixing art with food is a great thing. Edible finger paint is simple and quick to make, and kids as young as one will enjoy painting with this fun art supply. Clean up is as simple as tossing the kiddo in the bath after the painting is done. And, you don’t have to run out and get a thing for this project — you probably already have what you need in your refrigerator.

Supplies for Edible Finger Paint:

Plain yogurt
Food coloring (I used gel food coloring)

One of my favorite tricks for a toddler is to mix little cups of plain yogurt (or vanilla pudding) with a few drops of food coloring in each cup. You don’t need that much food coloring because when the yogurt dries, the color is actually darker on the paper than it is when it’s wet. Also, you don’t want the paint to be so dark that it stains the kid and whatever he touches.

Before we tried this, I considered buying finger paints, but I was really pleased with this activity because it was free (we already had the supplies on hand), and because it’s edible and washable. The paintings look nice when they’re dry, too. The colors are really bright.

The Process:

Strap your child in their high chair and let hthemer use the yogurt as “paint.” They can paint paper (just let it dry for a vibrant art piece, suitable for grandma’s fridge or a thank you card), grapes (for a snack), or even just the high chair tray itself. This paint works great with paintbrushes or with fingers.

This was my son’s first time finger painting, but he got the idea really quickly. Of course, plenty of the paint got into his mouth, but the beauty of this paint is that it’s okay to eat it! We used plain, unsweetened, unflavored yogurt, so it’s not so tasty on its own that the kid wants to eat it all and not paint with it.

Of course, you can adapt this activity to use what you have on hand. If you have pudding, use that. If you don’t have food coloring, use some cocoa powder to make brownish paint. If you want, experiment with natural food colorants like beet juice or pureed carrots.

Cleanup is easy. Just use a washcloth/sponge, and soapy water. For the kid, depending on how messy he or she is, you might be able to wipe them down, or you might prefer to toss the kid into the bathtub. Because yogurt is a dairy product (and already sour-smelling to begin with), I advocate the bath afterward. If you don’t feel like dealing with chair clean up, give your child the yogurt and stick him in the bathtub with no water and let him paint the walls. When he’s done, just give a bath.

My son had fun painting. This activity gave us about twenty minutes of fun, but this was our first foray into painting, and he’s only 18 months old. For his age, he paid attention for quite a long time. Older kids might last longer.

Heather Mann is a regular contributor at Make and Takes. She’s is the mother of three boys, ages 4, 2, and 10 months. Yikes, they’re all mobile! She publishes Dollar Store Crafts, a daily blog devoted to hip crafting at dollar store prices, CROQ Zine, a print magazine devoted to hip crafting, and also CraftFail, a community blog that encourages crafters to share their not-so-successful craft attempts.

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Weekend Links: End of Summer Grillin’

Marie — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:28:43 +0000

I can’t believe August is almost over, we’re so close to saying goodbye to Summer. So here’s a few recipes for any last minute BBQ’s you might be having before the Summer is over. Time to fire up the grill at least one more time!

Grilled Chicken and Pineapple Quesadillas by The Pioneer Woman (pictured above)
Pulled Pork Sandwiches by Aggies Kitchen
BBQ Shrimp by Dine and Dish
BBQ Baby Back Ribs by Make and Takes
Cowboy Burgers and Zucchini Kabobs by Picky Palate
Peanut Thai Dipping Sauce by Make and Takes

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Our Loch Ness Zucchini Monster

Marie — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:18:34 +0000

This was our zucchini from last year. It grew so much so fast that they were GIANT by the time I went out to get more. My husband decided to get creative with these over-sized zucchinis and created Nessie!

It comes complete with green tomato eyes and zucchini flower horns. I love it!

This year we wised up with our garden and have been letting my in-laws grow the zucchini for us! They’ve got plenty. Any Loch Ness Zucchini Monsters in your garden?

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Cleaning Your Closets One Door at a Time

Marie — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:48:04 +0000

I’ve recently shared a few posts about cleaning out closets over at SC Johnson Family Economics. Clutter can all too easily find it’s way into those hallway or linen closets. Here’s a couple of posts about trying to stay organized and keep your closets clean!

Cleaning out the Linen Closet

De-Clutter Your Coat Closet

Is it time to do some of that Spring cleaning this Fall?!

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Organizing Drawers with Recycled Shoe Boxes

Marie — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:15:59 +0000

I love to use empty shoe boxes for all kinds of storage. They are a perfect little size, fairly sturdy, and a great way to recycle! I mainly use them to help organize my kid’s bedroom drawers. Socks, underpants, and even dance clothes all fit perfectly inside these handy dandy shoe boxes.

They just make everything a little bit more organized, rather than tossing the socks in randomly.

What recycled type items are you using to help organize your home?

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Back to School Breakfast Ideas

Two Peas — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:11:10 +0000

The beginning of the school year can be rough for children and parents. It is hard adjusting to a new schedule. The sound of the early morning alarm is never a great way to wake up:) Eating a delicious breakfast can help though. Here are a few breakfast recipes that the entire family will enjoy.

Peaches n’ Cream Muffins

Pop Up Panakes

Baked Oatmeal

Berry Banana Smoothie

Homemade Granola with Coconut, Dried Cranberries, and Almonds

Make eating breakfast a priority this school year. Plan for a little extra time to sit down together and enjoy the most important meal of the day. If all you have time for is cold cereal, that is ok, but sometimes it is nice to enjoy a special breakfast treat.
Maria and her husband, Josh, are Two Peas and Their Pod. They are known as the “cooking couple” and are a great team in the kitchen. They love trying new recipes, flavors, and techniques and sharing their creations with the world. They try to keep things healthy, but they always save room for dessert.

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