Sharing Saturday 13-10

Thank you to all who shared with us last week!! Once again I was inspired by all of the amazing ideas shared. If you have not had a chance to check them all out, you should. Also make sure you check out my co-host's features this weeks over at Having Fun at Chelle's House.

Our most clicked post last week was from Happy Whimsical Hearts. I know I would love to play at her house with that wonderful cubby house in the back yard!

A Few of My Favorites

1) From Play Trains!: Our Play Date at Seattle Monorail (What a wonderful story and an amazing day!)
2) From An Idea on Tuesday: Pirates and Mermaids (Oh, I love these. I am definitely going to be making Hazel some soon!)
3) From Buggy and Buddy: Wool Felt Bird Hair Clip (I will definitely be making some of these soon as well.)
4) From Toddling in the Fast Lane: Recycled Pizza (What a great idea to make this while dinner is in the oven. I love it!!)
5) From Zing Zing Tree: Bottle Cap Flowers (Oh, I know Hazel will want to make these!)
6) From Artsy-Fartsy Mama: DIY Wax Paper Lantern (Love this!! Definitely want to make one!) 

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! If you were one of the ones picked as a feature here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

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My Week in Review: This week I shared Sharing the Easter Story with little ones, Fixing dress-up clothes that have been outgrown, A Jewish, Polish Cinderella Story, Strawberry Banana Muffins, Recycling Easter Egg Wrappers, and Beaded Crosses and jewelry.

 

 

Now for This Week's Party 
 
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Beaded Crosses

The other week when we pulled out the decorations, we had hung our four yarn eggs on our chandelier, but our chandelier has eight arms. I wanted to add some crosses to tie in the religious part of it. I thought about painting some wooden ones, but I couldn't find where I had stashed them, so we made some beaded ones. 

Hazel decided to make a necklace and bracelet as well. She decided we were working in our jewelry store making all of our special orders. Oh, and we had to sing a little song we made up about making the jewelry. First I will share a tutorial for our simple crosses. You need some beads (we used wooden ones) and a pipe cleaner.  Cut the pipe cleaner so it will make a cross (roughly 1/3 for the horizontal).

Then choose a bead to be the middle bead. I experimented a bit and found the flatter beads to work the best. Stick both pieces of pipe cleaner through the middle bead.

Then position the pipe cleaners to make the cross you want. You should have a little more on the top so you can make a loop to hang it.

Now start beading each branch of the cross. On the top one stop a little further from the end and bend it down to make a small loop so you can get a string through to hang it.

On the other branches you will just fold a short end over the last bead. Then it is ready to hang.

Hazel made this one!

These were the first ones, but I discovered the bigger center beads did not work as well.

We also made some jewelry. I made us each a St. Patrick's Day bracelet.

And I made us matching rainbow bracelets.

Then I used a rainbow pendant and made her a matching necklace.

Then she made a necklace and wanted me to make another necklace with another pendant bead.

Now she likes to accessorize herself with all of them.

She gets quite the comments going out like this. It makes her very happy though!

Dress-Up Dresses Resized--A Quick Fix

I only buy Hazel Disney costumes when they are on clearance or sale (post-Halloween). We have most of the princesses dresses now, but she has outgrown some. I should add that dress could also be a nightgown that looks like a dress. I figure if it looks like it we might as well use it as a dress up. (See the Ariel dress for an example.)

Last week Hazel wanted to put on her Snow White dress, but it was too small (especially over clothes). Now a month ago or so, I bought a pattern to make princess dress up aprons. I loved the idea since she wouldn't outgrow them  so fast. I of course have not had the time to start them yet. But taking that idea, I cut the back seam of her Snow White dress and added in ribbons at the waist and a piece of elastic for the top. I also finished the edges with my serger. I should have used less elastic, but wanted to make sure it would be comfortable on her with clothes underneath.

Then of course she didn't want to dress like Snow White anymore and brought me her Ariel "dress" which if I remember correctly is a 2T and she in now a 4 to 5T. This was a bit different since it has side seams and the back was very fancy. I cut the side seam up to the bottom of the sleeve on one side and put two ribbons in.

Again I finished the edges on my serger. Now she can still wear these two dresses that she has outgrown. 

And best of all I didn't have to spend money on new ones. I had all the supplies I used so it was very easy to do and cheap (much better than buying on clearance for $10-$20 in a bigger size).

And of course by the time I finished both dresses, she had moved onto playing something else. Here is a wonderful picture of her dressed up. She said she was the minister and was very excited to go to church every day. I sent the picture to our minister and let him know I wasn't sure what she is trying to say about his style.

He thought it was great and she should sell minister costumes.

Virtual Book Club for Kids Author and a Easter Craft

This month's author for the Virtual Book Club for Kids is Julia Donaldson. Before she was chosen for the book club, I had never heard of her. However shortly after the list of authors came out I checked each one out with a couple of books. We discovered Room on a Broom by Julia Donaldson. We will definitely be doing something with this book, but we are also loving so many of her books. Her picture books are all written in rhyme and so many of them have sweet messages to go with them. Julia Donaldson is a British author and you can learn more about her at her website. We will begin this month's blog hop on March 18th. I hope you will join us in discovering this wonderful author and find some great activities to go with her books.

Now for a quick craft to share. Last year, Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts shared some Easter candy wrapper art. Now I saved some wrappers from last year, but I don't know that we ever tried making any art. This year when I was pulling out the Easter decorations I found a basket full of wrappers and some plastic eggs. I got to thinking, I could buy a wooden cross for $1 at a craft store and wrap the wrappers (with the help of some glue to make sure they stay on) and make a very colorful and shiny cross decoration.

Hazel also loved making it with me. What a great use for those wrappers! Plus I love the colors. I cannot wait for spring to start!

Strawberry Banana Muffins

The other day Hazel and I made some muffins. We had some ripe bananas and Hazel decided we needed to add strawberries to them. So we came up with strawberry banana muffins, which I must add were delicious. We adapted the basic muffin recipe from our Better Homes and Garden Cook Book.

• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (we used white whole wheat because it is what we had)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup oat bran
• 1/3 cup flax seed meal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 beaten egg
• 3/4 cup nonfat milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 3 ripe bananas mashed
• 1 cup frozen strawberries, thawed a bit and sliced in food processor

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients.
2. In a medium bowl combine egg, milk and oil. 
3. Add liquid ingredients and banana to the dry ingredients.
4. Add strawberries and mix well.
5. Scoop into prepared muffin pan. (Either lined with cupcake liners or greased.)
6. Bake for 20 minutes and then turn onto rack to cool.
7. Enjoy!

Hazel decided it was Ducky's birthday and the muffin could be his birthday cake, so we had to put candles in one. Luckily after that she got side tracked. I think she may have liked these more than our blueberry banana muffins we usually make.