Hostess Gifts & More for Summer Parties

Disclosure: I was compensated for this post and this post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Thank you for supporting Crafty Moms Share!

Have you been looking for a gift to bring a hostess of a summer party? Or perhaps for those hard to buy for people? One of my favorite places to check out is Shop gifts under $25 at The Grommet. The Grommet is a company that helps launch new products onto the market. Usually it is the inventors/creators of the items that they are helping. The gifts are unique and new. Check out some of these great ideas from the gifts under $25 at The Grommet. 

Science Fun -- The 101 Coolest Simple Science Experiments -- Summertime Fun

Be sure to check out my on-line Thirty-One Review & Party!! Get all your summer organizing essentials!!

Disclosure: I was given a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Have you begun your Summertime Fun yet? We have and today's post is all about bringing learning and fun together! Today we are sharing a new book by some of my favorite bloggers called The 101 Coolest Simple Science Experiments by Rachel Miller, Holly Homer, and Jamie Harrington. These three amazing women are the team behind Kids Activities Blog and the Quirky Momma Facebook Page. If you don't know them you probably will love them too!

Huckabuck Bread, Felted Can Opener and Wet Kitty

Fluffy in one of her favorite places

Since we do not have school this week or next, I decided we would make Huckabuck Bread on our own. I have the recipe the teachers use each week. Somehow ours does not turn out nearly as good, but todays was pretty good. Hazel has been asking to make it at home for awhile. She was not happy about me taking pictures however. And she quit part way through on me.

Huckabuck Bread

Ingredients

	2 cup(s) water, warm
	1 tsp honey
	1 Tbsp yeast
	4 cup(s) Flour, organic, white, Bread
	4 cup(s) whole wheat  flour
	1 tsp table salt 2 tsp cinnamon dash of ground cardamom
	1/2 cup(s) olive oil
	1/4 cup(s) molasses
	1/4 cup(s) honey

Frothy Yeast

1. Dissolve the honey in the warm water. Then stir in yeast. Set aside to get frothy.
2. Combine the flours, salt, cinnamon and cardamom in a large bowl.
3. Combine oil, molasses and honey in another bowl.
4. Add yeast mixture to dry ingredients and combine. Then add oil mixture. You will need to mix with your hands. Then turn out on lightly floured surface and knead the dough for at least 10 minutes.
5. Put into oiled bowl and cover with cloth and let rise for 30 minutes (I let it rise for over an hour).
6. Punch down and knead on lightly floured surface and shape into rolls. Place on greased baking sheet.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. (I found I needed to bake it longer, but I was not using a small toaster oven like they do in the class.)



Kneading the dough

8. Serve with honey butter (ok, I didn't make the honey butter today, but we do have it that way at class).

Before Rising

After Rising

Out of the oven

I also made Hazel her can opener for her kitchen. I decided to needle felt it. I was trying to make it so she could turn the handle and spin one of the buttons, but my method broke after I spun it a few too many times (apparently).

I used a hook button for the handle and two round buttons for the cutters.

I think she will like it when she sees it tomorrow. What do you think? I made it the same colors as mine (except mine does not have anything wooden on it).

And our crazy kitty, Fluffy was hanging out in the sink again. This is the bathroom sink in what we call Hazel's bathroom (it is the main floor bathroom that is not the master bath). She actually lay there while the water was running for a bit too and then decided she wanted a drink. She loves to jump into the bathtub after we have showered or bathed so she drink the water or roll in it. She is a bit of a crazy cat.

This is where I link up...

Play Kitchen

So about a year and a half ago, Hazel and I were taking a walk when it happened to be trash day in our neighborhood. Three houses down out with the trash was a play kitchen. It was dirty and didn't have any of the drawers, etc., but otherwise was in good shape. And it was large. I called my girlfriend to see if she could come watch Hazel so I could get it into my car and then while waiting for my friend I happened to mention it to the general contractors who were doing our addition at the time. They of course said they would take a coffee break and go get it for me. Then the next day, one of them brought me a cleaner that works great on plastic and helped me clean it up. So here is the kitchen we got for free if it was new:

Source: http://www.kaplantoys.com/

I went to the Dollar Tree and Target and bought various baskets, etc. to fill in the holes and bought the accessories: pots, pans, dishes, food, etc. We have been slowly replacing the plastic food with nice wooden food and have even made some ourselves. Hazel loves playing in her kitchen.

This Christmas Season we seemed to get every toy catalog possible. I would give them to Hazel (as well as any other catalog that came that we didn't want) and she would pretend they were magazines. Well she fell in love with a pink and white wooden kitchen with curtains. I believe it was this one.

Source: http://www.cptoy.com/

Which of course is almost $400. Needless to say she isn't getting her dream kitchen. However she began asking me to make curtains for her kitchen. Well I went to Joann's and picked out some pink and white fabric and then bought more recently when it was on sale--enough to make a table cloth, napkins, curtains for all the openings that shouldn't be there and probably I will make some potholders and an apron to match and possibly some seat covers and cushions. While I was at it, I also printed out new stickers for her kitchen and personalized it. My dear babysitter put them up for me today while Hazel was napping and I was tutoring. So her almost finished kitchen now looks like this:

Yes, these curtains open so you can still see the lovely view they printed on the window!

I added a Command hook for potholders, but since her glove potholder was the one I found in her mess and it didn't have a loop, I hung her pink frying pans instead. Well, actually I hung one of them. When I got home she asked for another hook for the other one. I haven't put it up yet.

Needless to say she is pretty excited over the makeover of her kitchen. It is not her dream kitchen, but it certainly cost less than $400. Oh, and I mentioned to the neighbors who were getting rid of the kitchen that we had taken it (we don't really know them), and they were very happy someone took it since they couldn't find anyone who would. They also gave us their daughter's tricycle when they bought her a bicycle, so Hazel now gets her hand-me-down toys and we are not complaining.

Now if I can just get her to clean her kitchen up. Every time I organize it for her it stays that way until the next day (I do it after she is in bed), but it certainly does not last long. Oh, well she has fun with it! (As you can see we have discovered Starbucks kid size hot chocolate recently, so we washed  the cups so she could pretend to go. I also gave her my empty gift card so she could pay when she goes. I found a cute tutorial to make their coffee cups from felt and will try to adapt it to her hot chocolate and my chai latte.)

She also found a new place for her Caillou figures (and her treehouse family and many other things) to live. While cleaning off the top of the kitchen I took an old broken toy down. Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to fixing it, but she didn't care. My father and I made it this summer for her, but one of the supports gave way. Oh, well, now she has a home for her new toys. I moved the plastic furniture my mother-in-law gave her into it as well.