T(ea) is for Thank You

It was teacher appreciation day a couple of weeks ago at E's school. She has amazing teachers and I wish I could've spent more on them to really show how much we appreciate them and all they do. But until two of our apartments start to bring in rent again I'm pretty much on a zero dollar budget. So I went looking for things we already have at home. I know, how bad did that sound. Kind of like regifting. But these are the times right now and I thank my Lord He made me crafty and imaginative. 

I love tea. I'm a big tea drinker and I have a lot of different teas in my pantry. So I came up with "T(ea) is for Thank You". I was so excited and jumped online right away to look for directions for this envelope kind of pocket thing to make for all the tea. I found something much better! A paper cup tutorial. I mean, how cute did they turn out, if I may say so myself.

Here are some of the teas in the cups. I must admit that scooping up loose tea into the little plastic bags made me feel like a drug dealer. Well, not really of course, but the thought hit me as I looked at my little bags laying there on the table.  "Here Mrs X, thank you for dealing with my kid. I'm sure you need to relax a little after being around all the three and four year olds..."

(Ok, can you tell it's past my bed time?)

 

We did write real thank you notes and E drew pictures of her and her teachers together. I also wrote down word for word what she had to say about her teachers. It was so cute! We rolled them up into little scrolls and attached a hemp ribbon and a tag so it looked like the end of a tea bag. I did take a picture of them with my camera but it came out really blurry and not even picnik could do anything about it. (I had good pictures on my iPhone, but we all know what happened to them, don't we?)

Anyway, if you would like to make your own cups you can find the tutorial here.

 And here's one final shot of the cups.

Our St Patrick's Day in Pictures

Glutenfree Playdough

When planning for H's birthday party I knew I wanted to make play dough as party favors for the kids, and I wanted it to be sparkly white, just like snow. But if you've ever made homemade play dough you know that it won't come out white just because you don't add food coloring. It turns kind of beige. Not good for imitating snow. (Never play with yellow snow...) And I don't know about you, but I've never seen white food coloring. Does that exist? So I googled white play dough and it turns out that gluten free play dough is as white as it gets. I guess the flours used doesn't turn off white, like wheat does. 

My first attempt to gluten free play dough resulted in a sticky mess that smelled like pizza dough. I don't think you want me to share that recipe. But maybe you'd like to know what worked? Are you ready? Here it is...

(sorry, only picture I've got of it.)

Gluten free play dough recipe

1 cup gluten free Bisquick

½ cup salt

1 cup water

½ tbsp cream of tartar

1 tbsp oil

I also added glitter to mine. And of course you can add food coloring and spices or extracts if you'd like.

Mix everything together in a pot. I prefer a non stick one. Heat it up and stir until it turns into one big lump. Knead (I just love warm, fresh play dough) and let it cool down. Then Play!

Something to do - Play Makeup

Do you have a daughter that likes to play with your makeup? Do you have makeup that you don't use because someone once gave you a box with totally not your color eye shadow? Or something like that. I do. And while hopping from link to link to various blogs using my iPhone I stumbled upon this great idea to turn my box of wrong colors into play makeup for my girl. If I would have been using my computer I could have put a link to the original post, but like I said, I was on my cell on some blog I normally don't follow. Totally would though if I were to stumble upon it again.

The whole idea is to pour some sort of glue on top of your makeup and let it dry. Most glues dries clear, make sure yours does too. I used Stampin' Up's crystal effects. There will be air bubble to pop. Just use a needle. Be careful not to push the needle down into the makeup itself as it can smear into the glue. Mine didn't and I hit the makeup a few times. As you can see on my picture I wasn't able to pop all of my air bubbles. The glue dried too fast and I had to stop popping bubbles or they would turn into holes. But my girl doesn't care about them anyways.

Another little tip is to be patient. Don't touch until completely dry, which can take hours, or you can end up with finger prints. I totally messed up with one of the squares before it was dry, leaving a big dent in it and I was bumming, thinking I messed up the whole project. Not fun considering it's quite time consuming. But I guess crystal effects is my friend. It healed itself over night. Yay!

Now I really feel like running down to the dollar store to pick up some cheap makeup and make some more. She could use a blush, right?

Something to do - First Year Calendar

 When E was little I made a calendar of her first year and sent it as a Christmas present to all the grandparents. I started in April and had time to work during her naps all through the year. This time around I had the same plans, but with a non napping three year old (now 4) I didn't get started until - gasp - October. Or was it November? Anyhow, I started LATE! And I was working late nights, often past midnight to finish them all up before Christmas. And still didn't manage to do so. But they are finally finished and I'm hoping to send them out this week. 

Okay, if you are a grandparent to my kids stop reading NOW! Do not scroll down. All I have to say is
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

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(I just figured I should give them a chance to stop scrolling. I'm nice like that.)

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OK, here we go...

This is the binder that will hold the pages once this year is over. The back of the tag says Merry Christmas 2010, or God Jul 2010 depending on what grandparent we're talking about.

This is the 1st page inside the album. The top picture is one of H's newborn pics. My grandmother gave me that little pram (?) stroller and then my talented mom changed the fabric and brought it with her in her suitcase (!!!) for E during one of her trips here. The bottom pic is of H on her first birthday. See how she's grown? She's still a li'l peanut though.

This picture makes me miss her being a little baby so much! She was tiny!

We have pictures of E in the same outfit, with the same heart pillow. I have to show you some time.

Sisters!

I really wanted to make a pool page, but apparently I only took pool pictures in July. I couldn't really skip a 4th of July theme so the American grandparents got the 4th theme and the Swedish ones got the pool pics.  

This is from our apple non picking trip. What a bad year for apples. How could they all be gone by the end of September? We still got some great shots.

 I'm so sorry you can't see the beautiful faces of my girls. Just trust me when I'm telling you that you're missing out on some seriously squeezable cheeks.

 

Sorry Santa. I didn't pixel out your face. But everyone  knows you already. =) 

Well, there you all have it. Maybe some day I'll post E's calendar too.

Something to do - Gardening Fun

One of our "homemade" Christmas gifts that we made for E was a mini garden. She loves, loves, loves to garden and this was such an easy gift to make. We bought a plastic bin, some fake flowers that were on sale and trimmed their stems a bit sins they were super long, some sunflower seeds from the grocery store, a garden trowel and some organic potting soil. And then we waited until the night before Christmas before putting it together. And that's when we noticed it...

I really wanted organic potting soil because the thought of E playing with chemical filled soil wasn't too appealing to me. What I didn't realize what that when you don't use chemicals to nourish the soil you go natural... Yes, our living room smelled like a farm. To put it nicely. We realized that we could not let her play in that soil and stumbled out into our dark backyard, dumped the soil where I think my FIL plated some roses and grabbed some sand from the sandbox.

I have to say that this, easy to make, inexpensive gift was a huge hit. We actually had to remind E a few times that she had more gifts to open. She just wanted to keep planting. I think this is a gift we can keep adding to as little rewards or "just because" gifts here and there. Maybe some more gardening tools, gloves and apron. More seeds and flowers. A watering can. What else? Do you have any suggestions?