Fiber One Snackcessory Challenge

Have you entered my current giveaway yet? Come win the fantastic book to inspire creativity and imagination!!

A bit ago I was contacted and asked if I would make and share a Fiber One Snackcessory to help promote the contest they currently are running. They offered to send me all the materials I would need to make this Snackcessory. I was intrigued and needed a bit of creativity challenge so I said yes. This weekend a package arrived with my supplies.

Now first what is a snackcessory? Well it is a container to carry your Fiber One bar (or any other snack). I'll admit it took me awhile to decide to do this because I try to stay away from most bars of any type and really any processed food, but I figured we are always looking for ways to keep snacks so why not try it.

Second, what is the challenge? You must design and enter your own snackcessory at Fiber One Snackcessory Challenge. You will have a chance to win a trip for two to Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City in February 2013 and the nine finalists will each be awarded a $500 gift card for a handbag of their choice and a box of Fiber One Bars and Brownies.

Well my package arrived this weekend. It had a black container that looks like it is a hard case eye glass case, adhesive spray, a plastic ziplock bag, a small jar of glitter, a Fiber One bar, and directions. At first I was going to not do the glitter. My big fear was and is the glitter getting everywhere. I attempted to seal it, but I must admit it is coming off a bit still.

They asked us to personalize them, so I helped Hazel add some gems this morning. They were sticker gems, but did not stick to the glitter. We used glue which made them slide around a bit and they dropped a bit down the side. They originally were all in a line. Then I added her name in glitter glue. She wanted the black case as soon as she saw it. She loves opening and closing it and needless to say, for her, glitter only makes it better.

Then I decided to get creative. My first thought had been cover it with fabric. I thought about doing it like the fabric covered Easter eggs. Instead I decided since I knew Hazel would love the glitter to do some fabric covered boxes. My next challenge was finding the right size box. I found two. One is from dollhouse furniture (as a miniaturist I save lots of little boxes and containers) and one is from modeling wax that I bought for Hazel that we have not used yet. I added adhesive Velcro to the dollhouse furniture box so it could close and stay closed. Hazel added princess stickers. I think this one is for her as well.

Then I got to thinking of one Hazel could make with me. I wanted it to be more than covering a box. I thought of sewing one, but Hazel couldn't help with that. I came up with toilet paper rolls. I decided to double them up so it would be stronger. Now I'm imaging using this in a purse or school bag, so you want it to be strong as to not crush your bar. I traced the bottom of one of them twice and cut out the circles from some cardboard we had in recycling. I glued the bottom on and then for the top I cut a piece or ribbon. I glued the ribbon onto the circle so it had both ends hanging off a good amount. I glued one end to the tube and folded the other end and secured the fold with glue. I let them dry (or at least I did with the one Hazel made which turned out better). Next we picked fabric and cut out two circles slightly bigger than the cardboard circles and a rectangle big enough to cover the toilet paper roll. I used pinking shears so I would not have to worry about fraying. Hazel picked some of the nursery rhyme fabric I had leftover from her quilt. We Mod Podged the fabric on. We did the circles first and then the rectangle. We let this dry. Then I cut a adhesive Velcro square to fit the ribbon and put Velcro so it would close. And yes, the Fiber One bar does fit inside! I think I may go enter this one in the challenge! Won't you join me in it?

Show Me a Story Review & Giveaway--Ways to Inspire Creativity in Our Children

Today I have the pleasure of telling you about a book, Show Me a Story by Emily K. Neuberger. Even more exciting is that Storey Publishing is giving one of my readers a copy of this book. See below for details. 

Happy Family Times #25--Founders' Day

Oh, I just visited all the wonderful posts shared last week for Happy Family Times. Wow, there were so many great, inspiring ideas. I know I have some great plans in my head now. If you have done something with your family this week and posted about it, please share it with us below. Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting them in hopes to inspire all of us to do more with our families!

This week our town held its annual Founders' Day. It is a day where the streets in the center of town are closed and every non-profit group, some businesses and some crafters and vendors take over and sell, giveaway and entertain. It is a fun day. Part of the street is full of blow-up games like bouncy houses, one side street is filled with food (mostly donated from local restaurants for school groups to raise funds). Then all around town hall and the library are crafts and vendors as well as all the community groups. The Friends of the Public Library often hold a book sale and the library bathrooms are open for the day. Overall it is a fun day but it can be hot and tiring. We park at a friend's house and walk a short distance to get there. Hazel loves it and remembered it from last year.

Hazel enjoyed making an apple basket craft at the Lakeshore Learning table, a bracelet with the help of a girl scout, a wooden race car at the Home Depot (with lots of help from Daddy). She also got to see Elmo. We entered lots of free raffles and got lots of hand-outs including bubble stuff, lots of reusable bags, pens, pencils, a plastic sand castle, and it goes on. We stopped at a local church for some ice cream. Then on our way to the car we stopped at the Iron Works where they had an iron pour and some old fashion toys including the stilts you see Hazel trying with Daddy's help.

The iron pour was really interesting. First you are given a hard sand mold that you can carve a design into. They do tell you all letters and numbers need to be backwards and so do words. Then you bring it over to them and they spray it with graphite. Then they get the fire going nice and hot. They are burning what they called coke which is a processed fuel (for more info check out here). The sparks and then some of the metal came out the side of the burner. They said this meant it was almost time to pour. Then they knocked out the cooled lava to get the liquid to pour into cement buckets and then they put them into smaller more controlled buckets to pour into all the molds. Then after some cooling has taken place they spray them with water to cool them further. After that they will knock the molds off the platform and placed more in their spots. At this point we went home and came back to get Hazel's metal sculpture. It was fun. She was not all that into it since it was hard and a long process. Next year she might enjoy it more.



Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Teaching about Hunger--Young Children

As you know I have joined the group, Moms Fight Hunger, for National Hunger Month. Our goal is to help end childhood hunger. I have been struggling with ideas to make a difference and for ways to explain hunger to Hazel. Today I'm going to share with you a few of my solutions with more to come each week.

One thought I have had is about nutrition. I feel so lucky that I can buy my daughter and my family nutritious food. Often I even am lucky enough to buy organic produce and organic dairy products. It troubles me that the food that is best for you is also very expensive. A friend from middle and high school who currently lives in Germany commented on how expensive it is to buy good, nutritious food in the United States when she was here visiting. That is troubling, because for the people without as much money, it means they are often deciding between quality and quantity. Is it better to get a small amount of more nutritious food or enough food to fill you? I'm glad that is a question I have not had to personally decide on. 

My Plans and What You Can Do This Week:
This week I planned with the local library's children's librarian to hold a story hour well actually three (for different ages) about food and hunger (depending on age group) and ask each child to bring in a can (or more) of food for our local food pantry. Now the local librarian knows me and about my blog and is always helpful when choosing books for the Virtual Book Club for Kids and any other topic I can come up with. She already knew I was participating in Moms Fighting Hunger and was more than happy to help. We planned the story hours for the first week in October, so we will have plenty of time to advertise it and get the needed food. I also talked to the local newspaper editor this weekend about the possibility of doing it and he is on board to cover it for us.

What can you do to help? How about donating some canned food or boxed food to your local food pantry.

Helping Children Understand There Are Hungry People in the World:

Then I was telling Hazel a story the other day. Now some of the traditional fairy tales scare Hazel. For example, in Hansel and Gretel she becomes afraid of the witch. Well before I had Hazel I had entered a dollhouse competition and made a gingerbread dollhouse and changed the story of Hansel and Gretel a bit for my entry. I had made the witch a nice old woman who had lost her family due to a house fire. She went off the woods to live since all the people in the village stared at her and talked about her. They called her the witch. The only way she knew to make a house was to bake a gingerbread house so that is what she did. When Hansel and Gretel arrive she invites them in and feeds them and teach them to make gingerbread houses. 

Source

Well I took this version and tweaked it a bit and told Hazel a story. You can download the story (it is two pages) at the following links.

Page 1                               Page 2

After reading the story to your child, have the conversation about helping others and that there are people hungry in the world and for that matter in your own town. Remember 1 in 5 kids are hungry!! We can put a stop to it if we all help!

What We Can Do Next Week:
September 17-22nd is Dine Out for No Kid Hungry Week. Please go check out what the offers are at your local restaurants and make plans to have dinner out with your family and/or friends. The more the better!! And tell all of your friends about it!! We need everyone so we can end hunger!!

Here is a flyer to hang around and advertise the week. You can also make your own to have the specific restaurants in your area listed as well.

National Hispanic Heritage Month Begins Saturday

Did you know that National Hispanic Heritage Month begins Saturday? It runs from September 15 to October 15th. President Lyndon Johnson put into place National Hispanic Heritage Week and President Ronald Reagan expanded it to a month. (Source) My friend, Daria, reminded me and asked if I would like to make some of her musical instruments in honor of the month. I, of course, jumped on it. If you have not already checked out Daria's webpage you should, but especially check out her Monthly Song Page so you can enter her great giveaways for a pair of handmade maracas and/or a basket of castanets. Everything we made today came from her tutorials which you can find links to on her Monthly Song Page. Everything was made with recycled ingredients for the most part or at least things we had hanging around the house.

Hazel had a great time making the instruments, decorating them and playing with them! The pictures above are of her making and decorating them. We will start with the most well known instrument we made--maracas! Daria does a great job of explaining maracas including a bit of history. We used a small water bottle (we only had one in our recycling bin), two empty bubble containers (with the wands inside still), toilet paper rolls, beads, and electrical tape (red) and then Hazel decorated them with paint. Hazel loved putting the beads into the different containers. I taped the toilet paper rolls to the containers and then she decorated away. We actually have some maracas from the store so I included a picture of them as well so you could see the similarities and differences!

Next we made the guiro. This is actually easy to make and is somewhat similar to the maracas. We used an empty water bottle with ridges. We put some beads in it as well. Hazel also painted it a bit, but I don't recommend this since the paint flaked off immediately when we played it. Again, Daria does a good job explaining the guiro and a bit of it history. I think this is my favorite one we made!

The last instrument me made today is a cajita. Cajita means little box. It literally is a small box with an attached lid. To play it you hit it with a wooden stick on the inside, outside, wherever. I had picked up a couple of wooden boxes on clearance at the Christmas Tree Shop when we visited my parents last week. (Daria suggests a cigar box.) I pulled out the smallest one and gave it to Hazel. She added some paint so she could add her own touch (or at least that is the reason she told me she wanted to paint it). Then she played it with a pencil as well. Again, Daria does a great job explaining about a cajita, so please check out what she says.

After playing it a couple of times she decided she wanted to use the box for Ducky's diaper cream. She thought it was the perfect size for it. Oh, well. 

Since the cajita is from Peru, I thought I would share a children's book for you about life in Peru, Tonight Is Carnaval by Arthur Dorros. All of the illustrations are pictures of arpilleras sewn by the Club de Madras Virgen del Carmen of Lima, Peru. They are beautiful!!

The story is told by a young boy about his family getting ready for the Carnaval, which is three days away. First the work must be done. He goes into details about the work including farming, taking care of the llamas, sheering the alpacas and turning it into yarn and then taking their potatoes to the market in the village. After the market the Carnaval will begin. If you do not know, Carnaval is a celebration just before Lent. In the Andes it is celebrated for three days and nights with music (from a local band which the story teller gets to play in this year), dancing and feasting. 

Stay tune for more Hispanic Heritage Sharing the next month!! Next week Monday will not be multicultural due to the Virtual Book Club for Kids, but I will share something with you later in the week.