Strawberry Heartish Muffins

Hazel and I are enjoying a snowy day today. Winter Storm Nemo has begun to hit New England. So far it is flurries, but they are saying it will be much worse. As a result everything is closed or closing early. All the schools, dance class, etc. They are even closing public transportation at 1 p.m. To entertain ourselves we decided to make some strawberry muffins. I looked on line to find a recipe, however I didn't find one I liked, so I combined a few and added my own twists and came up with this:

	1 1/4 cup(s) whole wheat flour
	1/2 cup(s) all-purpose flour
	1/2 cup(s) sugar
	2 tsp baking powder
	1/4 tsp table salt    1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
	2 item(s) egg(s)
	1/4 cup(s) canola oil
	1/2 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
	1 tsp vanilla extract
	10 oz unsweetened frozen strawberries, I chopped them in my food processor after they had thawed

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

We combined the dry ingredients in a large bowl and Hazel mixed it.

We beat the eggs and added the oil, milk and vanilla and Hazel beat that together. Then we poured it into the dry ingredients and mixed. Then we added the strawberries.

Then we scooped them into papers. A few things learned--if using liners, use foil!! I probably would not use liners with these next time. They stuck to the paper. We used liners because we wanted to try to make them heart shaped. (See below)

Now my goal was to make a pinkish muffin and to try the heart shaped muffin trick I saw on Pinterest using a marble. I figured they would be cute for Valentine's Day morning. However, I am going to stick to using my small heart silicone muffin pan next time. I did not like the marble trick at all.

I baked them for about 25 minutes and then took them out, but they were not quite done. I adjusted the marbles and put them in for another 5 minutes.

They are moist and tasty. However I would probably up the nutmeg in the recipe and might add some cinnamon. Hazel is excited to have them at her dance party that she is throwing for her baby dolls. Oh, it is going to be a fun few days without my dear husband. He is going to sleep at work tonight since the worst travel time would be when he would come home and go back. I hope you will join us for Sharing Saturday later tonight!

Chinese New Year Instruments

We have been reading some books about the Chinese New Year. Hazel is rather excited. In fact her favorite activity is to pull out musical instruments and practice marching for a parade. The books we have read so far are Dragon Parade by Steven A. Chin and A World of Holidays: Chinese New Year by Catherine Chambers. We also have been playing the dragon race game that was in her High Five Magazine which was her first introduction to the Chinese New Year.

Fairies and Love Bug Dolls

So yesterday I was considering posting some of our crafts for the Chinese New Year or Valentine's Day, but when I came home from my Christian Education meeting at church, I didn't feel like formatting pictures and doing it, so I put it off until today. Then I was checking out some of my favorite blogs (which I have not been doing as regularly as I would like) and noticed that The Magic Onions is holding a giveaway of Margaret Bloom's new book, Making Peg Dolls. 

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Now I remember awhile back when Margaret mentioned to me in email that she had just gotten the deal for the book, but she was still keeping it low key. I am so excited for her and am so inspired for her. So my next stop of course was to check out we bloom here (Margaret's blog). Well on Monday, she kicked off her blog book tour and the post on The Craft Crow included a book review and a tutorial on love-bugs. I felt inspired, so I went and found some peg dolls and some clothespins as well as my paint markers and some flowers I had been saving for making flower fairies, felt and a few of our leftovers from different Valentine's Day crafts. I made two peg dolls--one a love-bug inspired by The Craft Crow's and a little flower fairy that I'm calling a snow drop fairy.

For the love-bug I painted the body red and cut pink felt stripes. I used a pink felt heart for wings. Then I cut a sparkly pink pom pom in half and it sort of fell apart, but I used it to cover the head. I painted a face on making the mouth heart shaped and then used a pipe cleaner as antennae.

For my little snow drop fairy, I painted the body light blue. Then used a fabric white flower (probably a daisy) as a skirt. I thought the light blue did not show up well so I went over the part showing with a more turquoise color. I used a white felt heart for the wings and painted on a face and hair. Then glued the same type of white flower together to form a hat. 

From the clothespins I made a chrysanthemum fairy and a queen of the flower fairies.

For the chrysanthemum fairy, I had flowers that were almost the same in two sizes. I used two large flowers on the bottom for the skirt and then used about five small ones for the top of her dress. I cut a pink felt heart in half and glued them together point to point for wings. I gave her a face and hair with paint markers and then put a sparkly plastic flower sticker for a hat.

For my queen of the flower fairies, I used a large felt flower for her dress and a small fabric flower for the collar. I gave her a green heart for wings and painted on her face and yellow hair. Then for her crown I used zig zag decoration and wrapped it around to be a rosebud. It takes quite a bit of glue and holding to get it to stay but you can also just pass a few stitches through it. My sewing stuff was not near me and I was being lazy. Then I just glued it on.

It was so fun to be inspired to craft again. Hazel is very excited to have some surprises this morning as well. How have you been inspired by something lately?

A Quick Little Valentine Project

While Hazel was making her lavender heart, I started making her a felt Valentine. I hadn't gotten very far with it that day since she needed more help than I had hoped on her heart, but I took it with me and finished it up at different places where I was sitting waiting (swim lesson, doctor's offices, etc.). I filled it with wool stuffing and a bit of lavender. She loves it even if her name did not come out all that well. Oh, well. It is a little Valentine for my little Valentine. I think I may try making some more with other decorations.

Fairy Tales from Different Cultures--Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters

In honor of Black History Month, I thought I would focus on some stories with black Cinderellas or from countries with a majority of black citizens. With one exception being next week, where we will honor the Chinese New Year with Cinderella from China. This week we are looking at a different version of the story taking place in Africa. This story was inspired by a folktale collected by G.M. Theal and published in 1895 in his book Kaffir Folktales. The illustrations in the book were inspired by the ruins of ancient city found in Zimbabwe. The book is dedicated to the children of South Africa. The book is Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe.

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First a little bit about Africa. Africa is the second largest and second most populous continent. It covers six percent of the earth's surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land area. Eastern Africa is widely accepted as where human beings began life.  The climate of Africa ranges from tropical to subarctic on the top of its highest peaks).  It's northern part is arid and desert. Central and Southern Africa has both jungles and savanna plains. 

Africa's population has increased greatly in the last 40 years. The population has a large proportion of its members under 25-years-old as a result. It is estimated that over 1,000 languages are spoken in Africa. Traditional African cultures have become less practiced in recent years due to neglect and suppression during colonialism and post-colonialism regimes.  (Source)

Now onto our book.  Mufaro's Beautiful Daugthers: An African Tale by John Steptoe is not your traditional Cinderella. In fact there is not very much of the traditional story in this one. There is a father and not a stepmother. There is a sister and not a stepsister and there is no talk about shoes lost or found. There is a bit of magic and of course the good and kind win over the cruel.  To begin let me tell you mufaro means happy man, nyasha means mercy, manyara means ashamed and nyoka means snake. This is in the author's introductory notes.  

Nyasha Doll

This story is about the two beautiful daughters of a man named Mufaro. His daughters are Nyasha who is kind and caring and Manyara who is selfish and mean. Manyara only mistreats her sister when their father is not around. She is often heard saying some day she will be queen and Nyasha will be her servant.  Nyasha does not understand why her sister is so unhappy and miserable. She wishes Manyara could enjoy her life more. 

Nyasha is always kind to everyone and has no problem helping with the household chores and even has her own vegetable garden. She loves singing while she tends her vegetables and it is said that her plants grow bigger and more bountiful than anyone else's because of her singing. One day she finds a green garden snake in her garden. She welcomes the little Nyoka since he will scare away the animals that may eat things from her garden. Each day she sees him there and sings to him.

One day a messenger comes to their village saying the king would like all the beautiful and worthy daughters to come to the palace so he may choose a wife. The palace is on the other side of the river is a half a day away. Mufaro tells his two daughters that they both will go with a wedding party the next morning. Manyara tries to convince her father that only she should go since Nyasha will grieve to death to be separated from their father and home. Mufaro says that the king must choose between two such worthy daughters so they both will go.

Manyara leaves during the night by herself since she wants to be the first to see the king. She has not traveled through the forest during the night before and is a bit scared, but wants to be there first. She sees a young boy who begs her for food, but she says no. Then an old woman calls her by name and gives her advice and Manyara yells at her. She also does the opposite of the advice.

At daybreak Nyasha gets dressed for the journey and meeting the king and hears commotion outside. It is discovered that Manyara is missing. They find footprints on the path to the city, so they assume she went on her own, but Nyasha is worried about her sister. 

When Nyasha sees the young boy she gives him the yam she had packed for her own lunch before he even asks for food. The old woman points the way and Nyasha gives her a small bag of sunflower seeds. Finally the reach the peak and see the river and the city and Nyasha says she has never seen anything so beautiful.

When they enter the gate of the palace they hear screaming and Manyara runs out. She begs Nyasha not to see the king saying that there is a snake with five heads in there. Mufaro comforts Manyara while Nyasha goes in to the king. On the throne she sees her friend, Nyoka. She smiles and asks why he is here. Nyoka then changes to the king and he tells Nyasha he knows her to be the most worthy since he has visited her as Nyoka and was the young boy and old woman in the forest. He asks her to marry him. Mufaro is proud that one of his daughters is the queen and the other is one of her servants. Quite the opposite of how Manyara always planned it.

Here is my summary sheet for our different Cinderella stories for this book. 

Our craft this time was to make a green snake to represent Nyoka. We used the tutorial at Ziggity Zoom which was a craft for the Chinese New Year since this is the year of the snake. We used Q-tips and masking tape (well we used blue painters tape because we had it) and then painted them and added some eyes and a tongue.

Next week we will be discussing some Chinese versions. I hope you will join us!