Great Dinner Recipe #1- Noodles and Hotdogs

So I was looking through a few recipes I tagged to try with Gavin. Hes a very picky eater and doesnt like much more than his formula. Even at almost 10 months! I was making spaghetti for my fiance and I, when I saw a recipe that included spaghetti noodles and hot dogs on pinterest. What kid doesnt like hotdogs?! So I got everything together and got to work.

Pretty simple idea right?! So I just took the noodles and broke them in half. I stuck 3 pieces through 2 cut up hot dogs. They'll look like this when you're done.

Of course you can always add more noodles or more hot dog pieces, but since G is so small still I knew this would be enough. Once you get to this point, just put them in some boiling water and cook until the noodles are soft!

Then TA-DA!

I realized as I got them out, how easy and fun this would be for children of any age. I cut them into pieces of course so G wouldnt choke and let him go to town! I have to say it was a huge hit that I'll repeat in the future! Even the dogs and fiance ate some! 

Yarn Letters for G!

So after a long hiatus from a sick child, sick animal, crazy work and weekend activities, I have finally found the time to sit down and post another craft I had fun doing! I'm hoping from now on, I can stay on top of this and get it going a lot faster. Thanks for hanging in there. So as my last craft, I got the inspiration from Pinterest. I had wanted to do these for awhile, but wanted to wait for the next color change in G's room. We recently updated his room from "the nursery" to a "big boy sports room". LOL It was a hard change for me but also exciting. To get started with this craft, I had to get this list of stuff together.

-Cardboard: just enough to make however many letters is in the name or word you are doing
- Yarn- one roll of yarn should be plenty, but it depends on the size of the letters and again how many letters you're doing
-Scissors
-Letter stencils of your choice
-Scotch tape

So the first thing I did was make a trip to my nearest craft store. I needed to find some stencils in the size and font I liked most. I then made my way over to the yarn section and tried to match the color to his room. Once I got home I cut up a cardboard box to look like this:

Once the cardboard was ready, I opened my stencils and punched out the letter I'd need for Gavin's name. Then I laid them out to fit the cardboard and simply traced them. 

I played around with the lettering on the cardboard a little bit to get it to look just as I wanted. Once they were all traced out, I cut them out. This can be a little challenging depending on the thickness of the cardboard and the shape of your letters.

Now comes the harder part. Take a long piece of your yarn and fold it in half tying the two ends together. I found this made the process of wrapping the letters a little easier and it made the yarn thicker. The hard part is getting it started. I took a small piece of scotch tape to secure the beginning of the yarn to the back of the cardboard. At that point you just begin to wrap around the letters. It also makes it a little easier if you wrap the letter in sections. At the end of your piece of yarn, again use a piece of scotch tape to secure and start again with another piece. Your letter will look kind of like this.

You'll notice in this letter you can see through the cardboard underneath. I simply just moved and straightened the yarn out so it was completely covered. Again depending on the size of the letter and the shape of them, depends on how hard the yarn wrapping will be. At this point, you've completed your first letter so the next ones should be a little easier. Once you get all of your letters done, youll have the joy of being able to hang them anywhere you want! You can hang your letters one of two ways, simply take a nail and hammer them against the wall (as I did) or you can put the nail in the wall and hang the letters by the yarn on the back. If you really want to get creative you can tack some ribbon into the back of the letters and hang them by the ribbon. Thats what so great about this craft. There are a million different ways to make it your own!

** One thing I will say is doing bigger letters with thicker cardboard is easier. I did small 5" letters with the thin cardboard and it did provide more of a challenge. It all depends on you and what type of space you are working with. **

Welcome- Lets get started!

I am so excited!!! This is obviously my first post and I can't wait to see how far this blog goes! I've been talking to a girlfriend of mine recently about how much creativity I've been feeling. I thought about writing, but realized I'm not any good at writing books. She had the genius idea of blogging. Its a great way for me to tie together crafting and writing. I appreciate all of you for your support and I hope I'll be inspirational to you all. I really have to thank Gavin the most for giving me the passion to craft. Looking around on line, I realized how many easy, fun, sometimes messy, crafts there were out there to try with him. So lets get to it!!

EDIBLE FINGERPAINT

What You'll Need 
4 small saucers
A pack of 4 different food colors
A towel
Old clothes for you mom
At least 12 tbs of plain yogurt
Few sheets of white paper


This was the first craft that we got to try. I looked around quite a bit for different ideas, but quickly found a lot of them required boiling and cooking. I don't really have all the time for that, so it came down to yogurt and food coloring. That's right all, 2 easy, cheap, ingredients!!! So with a quick trip to the store, I was home on the kitchen floor at work. I used the neon food coloring so the "paint" would be a lot brighter. I got out the small saucers so it would be easier for Gavin to get his hands in there and I put the plain yogurt on each plate. After adding the different colors to the yogurt, I stirred it up and we were ready to go! Feel free to use as much or as little food coloring as you'd like. Also try mixing colors for more options. I would advise putting a towel under the area you are working on to protect from the food coloring. I would also recommend wearing old clothes moms. I learned this point very quickly lol. I got Gavin down to his diaper and away we went!

We used simple, white, computer paper to put the "paint" on. Besides the yogurt being cold, Gavin had a blast. It was also a healthy, happy treat every time he stuck his hands in his mouth! Once he was finished, he had made 3 different finger paintings. I put them all on the kitchen table and let them dry over night. The next morning, they were complete. I decided to hang one on the fridge and the other 2 are to be given as part of his grandmas' Christmas gifts. It never dawned on me how cheap and fun it would be to create those most cherished gifts for family.

Please keep in mind, if you're a neat freak like I am, it is VERY easy to clean up. The yogurt and color comes right off baby's skin. We waited to do the project right before his bath time so I could just transfer him from one place to the other. With seeing how easy it really was, I will definitely remember this project for the future as he gets older.

HAPPY CRAFTING!!