My mom  and aunt remember making mud pies.  My cousins and I also have memories of sitting at the end of the field near the ditch and digging up mud.  We would scavenge around the farm to find toppings for our pies.

Gather your ingredients and let your kids get dirty!

Essentials

dirt (authentic dirt from Grandma’s ditch)

water – just a bit!

toppings  -  We used milk weed pods, “coconut”, “bananas” from Grandma’s willow tree and other leaves from her back yard trees.  The kids added grass, dandelions and rocks.  Use whatever you can gather up!

We even kept it clean by using wooden spoons to make the mud.  Now that the great grand kids get the hang of it, I’m sure the next batch won’t include spoons.

What’s your favorite family tradition?

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I see oodles of squinkies and other small toys that I always step on, getting kidnapped and hidden into a pinata until 5/5 arrives!  And I may just stuff the leftover jelly beans in too!

Read Full Post Here

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This morning I pulled out my playdough recipe to try and calm the 3 Crazies as they were running laps around the house.  This stuff is magic.  Once it cooled, my three normal children came back to earth, to  build, stretch and squish the playdough into all shapes and sizes.  Here’s the recipe in case you need some magic at your house.

Homemade Playdough Recipe

2 cups water
3-5 drops food coloring
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon powdered Alum (looks like cornstarch, found in the spice aisle)

Add all the dry ingredients to a large sauce pan.  Add food coloring to the water and pour into the pan.  Stir the ingredients and cook over medium heat until the paste thickens. The paste will look lumpy throughout the cooking.  After 3-5 minutes, the dough will start to pull away from the bottom of the pan. Remove from pan and knead until smooth.  Let cool.

Playdough can be stored in air-tight bag in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.

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Even non-crafters would like this personal screen printing machine from Yudu. Imagine the cool T-shirts, bags, and posters you could make!

There’s not a crafter out there who hasn’t dreamed what they could do with a gallon of chalkboard paint. And magnetic chalkboard paint? Be still my heart.

Any Tough Crafty Chick needs a multi-tool.  Great for camping, unscrewing battery compartments on kids’ toys, taking apart the pieces on your latest DIY project, cutting stuff, and threatening your kids.

If your crafter already has a sewing machine, they might just love a serger! The perfect big item present for the sewer who is ready to go to the next level.

Is there a craft or artistic pursuit your favorite crafter has mentioned that they’d always like to try? How about a calligraphy kit?

I have my eye on a Silhouette cutting machine. All you do is hook it up to your computer, like a printer, and BAM! The Silhouette cuts designs out with a small blade. Oh, can you imagine the possibilities?

Want to look crafty and in the know yourself? Make sure you tie up your gift with some baker’s twine.  That stuff says “I’ll tie you up in ninja twine” in craft talk.

Ready to go all out for your crafter? Or just about had it with the messy sprawl from your crafter? The Scrapbox is the solution! It looks like a piece of furniture, but folds out to display all of the tools, supplies, and a desk! So cool!

I always imagine that I’ll be way more organized and tidy with something like that. A girl can dream (and her husband can sob.)

A darling pincushion like this one from The Vivid Peach that has a storage jar built in to the bottom! Love that I could put my regular straight needles in the top and store extra needles, like leather and sewing machine needles, in the bottom.

If you’d like to get kids in on the crafting action, we can’t recommend Make and Takes for Kids more highly!

A few other quick ideas:

Sharp new scissors

A new bone folder

New yarn plus needles

Set of special glues

New needles and extra bobbins

New paper or a gift card to a paper store

Related Posts:

Gift Guide for Foodies

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A darling round up of back to school crafts from Dallas mama Jen!

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If you’re the type of person who does just one holiday craft per season, like me, I highly recommend trying these candy-filled eggs. I had a blast last year making them. I followed Megan’s detailed tutorial here and encourage you to do the same.

What you need:

Eggs

Dye

Paper mini-cups

Hot glue

Candy (small scale is best)

My son was so excited to dye the raw eggs. When he broke one, even better, it solidified in his mind that they were raw. I sent him to bed on time and got to work. First, I used a Dremel tool to slice the bottom off the eggs–the wider base end. Second, poured the raw egg into a bowl for breakfast in the morning. Third, rinsed the eggs and then boiled them for 10 minutes (use a toothbrush to clean out any remaining egg bits.) I re-dyed the eggs since the boiling removed all the color. (If you’re not trying to trick kids, you don’t have to dye, boil, then dye.)

This year I’m going to stick the dyed eggs in a low oven to dry them out more quickly. Once the eggs are dry, fill with small candies, hot glue around the edge, and stick the paper cups onto them to seal away. The egg sits up quite nicely after that. I had a plate of them waiting for after Easter dinner.

As far as my son remembered, he’d dyed raw eggs. Imagine his delight when I encouraged him and his brother to pick up an egg and smash it on the table. The looks on their faces were absolute magic. He came up with an elaborate story on the spot about some sort of Easter bunny miracle.

Sure, this project sounds time consuming, but it wasn’t really. I got most of it done while watching a single movie. It was so worth a little time and creativity to absolutely BLOW my kids’ MINDS.

Think you’d want to try them?

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I used to squawk about my undying love of the winter. Cuddling up on the couch to watch a movie! The comfort food simmering on the stove! The skiing!

Rachael would tell me, “Just wait until you have kids climbing the walls. You’ll hate the winter.”

Ugh. She was right about the kids climbing the walls. I’m all for bundling up and getting out to play in the snow and breathe some fresh air, but we’ve been blessed with the second worst air in the nation here in Utah and today the temperature climbed to a whopping 18 degrees at my house.

There are limits, people.

When I’m faced with a day inside, I take the leisurely and often, messy, route. Since we’re going to stay in, there’s no reason to rush breakfast, so let’s have pancakes and hot cocoa and take our sweet time!

I’m okay with a mess, so other go-to activity is baking. The kiddo does the measuring, the stirring, we practice counting skills by peeling off the right amount of cupcake liners, and we add sprinkles to just about everything. Sure, when you’re done, it looks like a flour bomb went off, but if your kid is like mine, they are happy to give the dust-buster a go.

But there is only so many cookies and muffins that a family can eat. So we search…we all search for something to keep the kiddos occupied, engaged and off the couch. It’s been a hot topic online in the last few weeks.  Here are a few great ideas for curing cabin fever…

• Oh Marie, you always get me with your easy and fun-to-make treats. These snowmen are no different.

Photo courtesy or Make and Takes

• Great ideas for indoor fun, mostly with stuff you probably already have on hand.
• I’ve been known to haul the Radio Flyer inside from time to time. Now I have a whole arsenal of outdoor toys to bring inside.
• Whip up a batch of salt dough. Decorate and hang like Nici of Dig This Chick did when illness kept her family housebound.
• Since my coat no longer covers my pregnant belly and the only shoes I can wear are crocs, I can’t really take my girl outside to get her snow fix. Next storm, I’ll bring the snow inside!
• Perk a gloomy house right up with this rainbow project from Meg Duerksen.
• When the only thing that will do is to bundle out and go outside, do it with style. Do it with a snowball fight survival kit.

Now, go play!

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As Easter is coming up, I share with you how to wet-felt an egg, and then needle felt a little chick to live inside the egg. Wet felting is great fun to do with your children, but as the felting needle is extremely sharp and scary it’s best to leave that for the adults (I have drawn blood many times, so be careful!).

Enjoy watching, and Happy Easter to your home from mine,

Emily

felted eggs from embers on Vimeo.

Below are some links to wool supplies:

http://www.treetopscolours.com.au/

http://www.thefeltedewe.com/rovings.html

http://www.thesilverpenny.com/woolroving.html

Plus a few inspiring things made by wet-felting:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Rounien

http://www.etsy.com/shop/roommate

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Lebenskuenstler

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