Pinterest Recipe Mash-up: Mini Maple Bars

Last weekend my best friend made mini doughnuts from tube biscuits then filled them with banana cream and topped them with a chocolate ganache. So I decided to try my hand at these easy-peasy doughnuts for the church potluck this weekend. I used the doughnuts from biscuits from here, and the maple glaze/frosting from here. I added an extra teaspoon of mapleine to the glaze because I thought it needed more maple flavor.

My test batch...these didn't last long though! 

48 doughnuts all fried up! It only took an hour to cut, shape, and fry them.

44 doughnuts ready to go to the potluck! Yes, I ate the "ugly" ones that weren't presentable enough. :)

No surprise that all of these got eaten at the potluck, and I got a lot of compliments on them. Have you tried baking anything from Pinterest lately?

Valentine's Day Crafts

I love February and Valentine's Day! Everything is decorated in pink and red with hearts. There's so many craft ideas on Pinterest that there's not enough days in February to do them all. So here are a few of the crafts the Frogs have been working on.

We learned about symmetry when we made these glitter paint hearts for our bulletin board.

Crayon melting on a hot plate is always fun! It's also an easy craft when the other teacher is sick, and you're by yourself at the last minute.

These are the simple heart flower Valentine's I made for the kids with the help of my Cricut. :)

I made heart chains to decorate the classroom.

Pink bubble prints were a hit! Note: poke a hole with pin so if they try to drink it they can't, but it still blows bubbles. :)

These TP tube heart stamps were a hit as well. Sadly, they didn't hold up too well after this one got done.

Simple yet cute hand print Valentine that the kids gave their parents.

Pipe cleaner and Cheerios bird feeders were another favorite project. One girl reported back the next day that the birds were eating the Cheerios.

 What crafts did you make for Valentine's? I love your feedback!

Winter Crafts & Activities

Now that winter is almost over, here are a few of the crafts and activities we did in the Frog class.

Lick and stick snowman pictures. Sorry, it's sideways.

Doily snowman picture. We hung these on their lockers. Again, sorry it's sideways.

We also made borax crystal snowflakes which I posted about a few weeks ago. The kids also had fun playing with the shaving cream snowman in a bag activity.

The beginning of February was literacy week at our school. We had fun reading The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse by Eric Carle and we painted funny colored animals, too! We also read The Mitten by Jan Brett, and decorated a mitten and made animal puppets to tell the story. Finally, for our assembly we retold the story of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and the kids loved making wild things masks. I wish I could post a picture of all of them because they were SO CUTE! Although, I'm slightly biased since they're my class. :)

These are just the few crafts and activities we had time for. I found tons more on Pinterest that I wanted to use, but there isn't enough winter! Maybe I'll use those next year.

What are some of your favorite winter crafts and activities with kids? I love to hear feedback!

Learning How to Knook

No, it's not the e-reader from Barnes & Noble. It's a special crochet hook with a knitting needle on the other end. For me it's the combination of two of my favorite hobbies, knitting & crocheting, into one awesome craft! With a little help from a kit I got at JoAnn's and watching a few YouTube videos I have gotten the hang of how to knook.

Pictures are always helpful so here are a few of my new adventure:

This is the Instagram picture before I even opened the kit

Figuring out the knit stitch

Figuring out the purl stitch and making stockinette

Starting my first project: spa cloth from the booklet that comes with the kit

Super excited to be using scented cotton yarn! (Sorry it's sideways)

Finished spa cloth!! (Again, sorry it's sideways) Working on more to add to my Etsy shop. :)

So far I'm enjoying this combination of knitting and crochet. It's also a great conversation starter since hardly anyone knows what it is! My next knook project is a toddler hat for a friend's 12 month old. What knitting or crochet projects are you working on?

Crystal Snowflakes

Our science experiment this week is growing borax crystals on pipe cleaners shaped like snowflakes. It was a lot of work, but the kids love watching them grow (so do I!). I forgot how fast the borax crystals form, and by the time I was finished with the last batch the first batch already had crystals forming on the top. I took the basic recipe from here which I found on Pinterest (of course!). I made most of the pipe cleaner snowflakes after having two girls try it, and the results weren't what I expected. We also chose to add blue food coloring to make it even more fun! Anyways, here are the pictures.

We didn't have enough mason jars (read: we didn't want to wash them all) so we used large clear plastic cups instead. I wasn't sure how they would do with the boiling water, but they held up great since I let the water cool a little before pouring it in. 

After only a few hours the crystals are growing!

Christmas Cards

Think of it this way; this post isn't late, it's giving you great ideas for next Christmas! I had a lot of fun using my new Cricut, an early Christmas present thanks to Black Friday, along with stamps to create our Christmas cards this year. We sent out/hand delivered about 50 cards this year; so I decided to make five designs and ten of each design. So here's the big reveal of my original designs:

This was my first Cricut trial. I cut out the circles and stamped the wreath on them. I made some of them green because I ran out of red card stock. Oops!

 

 

As I got used to the Cricut I got a little braver. I cut out the ornaments and the saying. I started cutting out red ornaments, but realized that blue might look nice too since it matches the ribbon. I like both of them, but I'd love to hear what you think!

I gave the Cricut a rest on this one, and went with a simple stamped card. This stamp set from Stampin' Up is one of my favorites! The dragging on the edges helps it pop off the background paper a little more.

This is another simple stamped card. I love this swirly tree stamp, and the bling in the middle gives it an extra pop.

These adorable penguins were by far the most work! I used the Cricut to cut out all of the pieces, but had to glue all the tiny pieces on by hand (that was 20 penguins total!). But looking at it again it was worth the effort because they're adorable. :)

I hope you enjoyed these designs. What Christmas cards did you make this year. Did I inspire you to get a head start on next year?

Other Wedding Projects (the last post)

I'm horribly late on posting these pictures of other projects for Diana's wedding! But better late than never, right?

After Diana and I finished the wedding invitations we still had some work to do. There were still table names and place cards to make along with programs to put together. That was all part of my wedding gift to them. I also helped her make cute tumblers for the bridesmaid gift baskets.

 

One of my favorite things that Diana and Aaron did was collect rocks from different beaches in the area, and used those in the bottom of the bowls for the center pieces. Where they got the rocks coordinated with the table names. The bride & groom table had rocks from all of them. Isn't that a cool way to add in a piece of the Pacific Northwest?

Fun Fact: Mukilteo Ferry Park is the beach where they got engaged!

This is my place card. We printed names on one side with table name on the other, and the little "C" in the corner indicated that I chose the chicken option for food. Then we simply stamped on the side with Baroque Motifs to match the table names.

Diana typed up everything for the programs (with a little help from Google!), and we went to Kinko's to print them. Pretty basic: cover, order of ceremony, listing of the wedding party and parents and grandparents, timeline for the reception, a short thank you note, and their new address is on the back (due to privacy I'm not posting that). Can you tell she's very detail oriented with the specific timeline for the reception? Good thing it all went according to plan. :)

I found these tumblers at Dollar Tree after looking everywhere else for them. I got the glitter glue from the dollar section at Target. Diana wrote our names on the side and bride, maid of honor, and bridesmaid on the lids. One thing we didn't realize until putting water in them is that the glitter glue comes off then it gets wet. Looking back we should've spent a little more for the puffy paints instead. Oh well, they were still cute while they lasted. :)

That wraps up my wedding projects posts (finally!). Since the wedding in September I've had a lot more time to work on other projects. I'll post more about those later...