Paper Heart Hand

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Paper Heart Hands

These Paper Heart Hands are such a fun and simple project!

I’ve made quite a few of them with my girls. They only take a minute and they love to play with them.

What’s really awesome, though, is that they also make great gifts! You can have the kids decorate them with doodles and stickers and send them in greeting cards to grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends. Or the paper hands can BE the greeting card itself.

On that note, they also make great homemade presents for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s / Grandparent’s Day. But we like to make them every so often just for fun.

Paper Heart Hands

You make them by folding a piece of paper in half and lining up your child’s hand against the folded half, with their thumb and forefinger touching the crease, as shown above.

Trace their hand, or have them trace their own hand, making sure that the tips of their thumb and forefinger overlap with the creased edge.

Paper Heart Hands

Then cut out their hand. Voila!

The space between the thumb and forefinger is what resembles a heart when you open it up, so try to make your outline of the hand resemble half of a heart in that space when you cut it out.

It’s okay if you’re a little off – like I was in this one. Some look more like hearts than others. My girls {and Grandma} love them anyway, even if they’re not perfect.

Paper Heart Hands

And one thing that my daughters love is when I take that “heart” that I cut out of the center of their hands and turn it into a little butterfly with just a few more snips of the scissors.

The “butterfly” is that thing in the photo that looks a bit like a number 8 with a pointy bottom. Again: young kids usually aren’t that much of a perfectionist when it comes to crafts.

Anything involving construction paper, scissors, hearts, and – possibly – butterflies is awesome for them.

The best part? These make amazing homemade Valentine’s Day cards. They’re easy to color and to decorate with stickers, and you can write a little message inside of them.

Roaming Rosie Signature

5Nov2014

Felt Lacing Pumpkins

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Felt Lacing Pumpkin Pillow Craft for Fall / Halloween / Thanksgiving

These Felt Lacing Pumpkin Pillows are so cute, and my girls really enjoy them.

And I say “enjoy them” in the present tense instead of “enjoyed making them” in the past tense, because they’re still playing with them.

They make pretty nice Fall decorations, too… except that they keep walking off and getting lost in the baby doll’s beds…

Anyway, this is a great project to do with kids in autumn. I made a step-by-step photo of how we made them {see below}. I didn’t post any patterns or anything, since I did it all by hand.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 sheet of orange felt per pumpkin
brown yarn
scissors
hole punch

To make the pumpkin pillow:

1. Fold the felt in half and cut it along the crease to make two pieces. With the two felt sheets together, cut out a shape resembling a pumpkin. Sort of an oval with a stem on top.

2. Use a hole punch to make holes around the edge. This may take a few minutes if you {like me} don’t own an ergonomic hole puncher with a cushioned grip. Place the pumpkin with the holes on top of the pumpkin without the holes, and using a pen or marker, mark where each hole is, so that when you cut out the holes on the second pumpkin, they will line up with the first.

3. Cut a piece of yarn about a yard long for each pumpkin. Wrap some clear tape around one end of the yarn to make it sturdy enough to thread through the felt.

[I did steps 1 through 3 the night before, while my kids slept. If your kids are a little older – and you have an easier-to-use hole punch than me – you may want to let your kids help with those steps.]

4. Let your kids sew together the pumpkins, just like a lacing card, leaving a few holes {about a 1/4 of the pumpkin} open. See the 4th photo below.

5. Crumple up a sheet of tissue paper and stuff it inside the pumpkin. Alternately, use cotton balls or a some cotton batting.

6. Finish sewing up the pumpkin and tie off the yarn.

Felt Lacing Pumpkin Pillows

It’s a pretty easy project, and the best part is if you don’t have any felt, you could always substitute construction paper!

Plus, we made ours before Halloween, but if that’s already passed, these look great for Thanksgiving, too!

Have fun!

Roaming Rosie Signature

4Nov2014

Halloween Puffy Paint Window Clings

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

This Halloween Puffy Paint Window Cling project was one of those that was a borderline “Fail” for me.

Luckily the kids still had a blast.

Not only did I let them play with paint {always a big hit} but they also got to stick things on the windows {also cool}.

The main problem was that I made some of them too thin, meaning that they got stuck to the wax paper. The ones that came off still had some paper residue on one side and had to be attached to the window with the side I thought would be facing us.

Since I had so much trouble peeling some of those off of the not-as-smooth side of the waxed paper, I then tried drawing some on the shiny side. Some of those were also too thin, but then they all stuck, regardless.

And by then I’d run out of puffy paint.

I plan to redo the project again in the future to try to figure out a better method, but, in the meantime, since my kids were so delighted with the whole thing, I’m sharing the free printables that I made for it anyway.

Halloween Puffy Paint Window Clings FREE Printouts

The point was to draw with the puffy paint on the waxes paper while the template was underneath {I was actually very proud of how well my 4yo did}, then let the paint dry, peel off your design, and stick it on a window.

As I mentioned, it kinda worked.

If you have {or have had} better success with a similar craft, please let me know!!

Here are the free printable PDFs that are in the photo above:

Halloween Bat Window Clings Template

Halloween Ghost Window Clings Template

Halloween Pumpkin Window Clings Template

Halloween Puffy Paint Window Clings

And it wasn’t all bad. The ones I salvaged did look pretty neat on the window. :)

Roaming Rosie Signature

2Nov2014

Jack O’ Lantern Cinnamon Buns

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

We had these Jack O’ Lantern Cinnamon Buns for breakfast the morning after Halloween.

I know, I know… didn’t we get enough sugar from trick or treating??

Well, yes, but Halloween was on a Friday and darned if I was going to let an entire weekend go by without continuing the celebration.

However, I was looking for something very easy. Not “oh, that wasn’t too bad.” EASY.

I mean, I could have gone all out and made the dough from scratch, taking the time to dye it orange, and mix in some real pumpkins, and to dye the icing as well, but – really – I couldn’t be bothered.

Not while dealing with a candy hangover, anyway.

One of the reasons this was easy was because nothing was homemade.

Except the faces.

But those I did when I was making chocolate covered marshmallow ghosts a few days earlier.

Either way, you should do these ahead of time. There’s no reason not to: they keep well.

What I did was freehand some jack o’ lantern faces on some waxed paper with some melted dark cocoa candy melts. You could try to use regular chocolate chips, but I don’t suggest it.

At first, I tried to make two eyes, a nose, and a mouth {see the faces in the upper right hand corner of the above photo} but they just looked strange. Instead, I switched to just making two eyes and a mouth.

Just make sure that the mouth touches both of the eyes so that the face is all one piece. Otherwise you’ll be pulling a bunch of little pieces off of the waxed paper and puzzling it together waaaaaaay too early in the morning. This way it’s just peel-and-stick.

I stored my faces, along with the waxed paper cut into smaller pieces, in a baggy in the fridge. When I stuck the buns in the oven, I stuck the faces in the freezer. This made them easier to remove from the waxed paper and less likely to start melting in my hand.

To Make the Jack O’ Lantern Cinnamon Buns:

As I mentioned, the buns and icing were just regular store bought cinnamon rolls. So cook them according to the package directions, then remove them to a serving platter and add the icing.

Before the icing starts to dry and harden, sprinkle them generously with the orange sugar sprinkles.

Then place the chocolate faces on top. Press ever so gently to make sure it’s stuck to the icing, but don’t press down too hard. Pressing down roughly will cause the faces to break, and after a few minutes they’ll melt slightly, adhering to the icing all by themselves.

Then just serve and relax!

Here are the sprinkles and candy melts I used:

Orange sprinkles can be more difficult to find when it’s not fall, but then, you probably won’t be making these for any occasion but Halloween anyway.

Enjoy!

2Nov2014

Chocolate Covered Mini Marshmallow Ghosts

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Chocolate Covered Halloween Ghost and Pumpkin Mini Marshmallows

I have caused myself to possess a strangely large amount of self control by making so many chocolate covered mini marshmallows recently.

You see, the mini pumpkins that I had made earlier this month were gone. Long gone. So I made some more. And some ghosts, too.

And I know what you’re thinking – why would you cover white marshmallows with white candy melts… aren’t the marshmallows ALREADY white??

Well, yes. Yes they are. BUT, they weren’t covered in chocolate, were they?

Everything’s better covered in chocolate.

Even bacon.

But I digress. My point is that they’re a super easy to make snack and they look so fun. Even though I made the eyes kind of fast and they kind of look like they’re melting.

I figure that adds to the Halloweenish charm.

Chocolate Covered Halloween Ghost Mini Marshmallows

To get the instructions on how to make these ghosts – and the mini pumpkins, too – check out my post:

Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Candy Corn & Mini Marshmallow Pumpkins

To sum it up, I dipped the mini marshmallows in melted white candy melts, let them dry on waxed paper, and when they were dry I piped on some eyes with melted dark cocoa candy melts that were in a little baggy from which I’d snipped off the corner.

But like I said, to get more details, check out the post I linked to above.

Chocolate Covered Halloween Ghost and Pumpkin Mini Marshmallows

Don’t these just look deliciously cute???

I separated the marshmallows into different cupcake liners in a container and surrounded them with candy corn, both for decoration and to keep them in place.

Kind of like a super sweet bento.

And if you really like the combination of chocolate and marshmallows, make sure to also check out:

Halloween Marshmallow Mummies

Happy Halloween!

Roaming Rosie Signature

1Nov2014

Is It NaNoWriMo Already??

Posted in writing by Rosemary Lynn

IS It NaNoWriMo Already??

My heavens – it ~~snuck~~ ~~sneaked~~ snuck up on me!

I mean, it’s not like I officially signed up or joined the club or anything, but I HAD hoped to put out a seriously amount of writing this month.

Grab the proverbial bull by the horns as the internet explodes with the enthusiasm of my fellow wordsmiths. That sort of thing.

Not that I expected to hit 50,000 words. It may be National Novel Writing Month, but I already knew I wasn’t going to write a novel.

Not right now anyway.

My focus at present are my children’s books. I did post a couple on Amazon, but there are so many more than need tweaking. And rewriting. And starting.

Writing 50,000 words worth of kids books in a month would be akin to a miracle. But maybe as I reach for the stars I’ll, you know, trip over my own feet and land with my nose smack dab in my notebook while my pen jabs itself into my ear and bellows, “Write something, dammit!”

Or something like that.

Either way, I figured some motivation might help. I recently made a post about You Should Be Writing memes, but they’re … well … they’re distracting.

So here’s one that’s a little more serious:

You Should Be Writing. Misery

What d’ya think? Help your motivation any?

What do you plan to write this November?? Share, please! :)

Roaming Rosie Signature

31Oct2014

Chocolate Almond Mummy Cookies

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Aren’t those just the sweetest looking mummy cookies you’ve ever seen??

I haven’t made these things in years and I was really craving them, but this year I changed things up a little.

All I did was add some almond extract into the batter and icing, but it really makes a difference. It adds so much dimension to the cookies. I feel like vanilla extract gets lost in chocolate cookies, but almond brings out both flavors.

And I like the royal icing as the mummy wrappings because it dries hard and shiny, although royal icing isn’t really known for it’s spectacular flavor… but a little almond is the perfect fix!

The cookie batter is based on the Hershey’s chocolate cutout cookies.

It’s an easy recipe, which is part of the reason I like. You mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, blend the wet in the other, then mix ’em all together.

Once you have your yummy chocolate almond cookie dough, cover it loosely with plastic wrap and store it in the fridge for an hour.

Try to do this before you – ahem – “taste test” the entire batch.

Roll it out on a floured surface and use some gingerbread men cookie cutters to make the mummies.

My cutters were about 2.5 inches tall and I got 4 dozen cookies.

The icing can be whipped up quickly with a fork. I can’t be bothered dragging out the mixer all the time…

Anyway, if you don’t already have meringue powder, it’s worth picking some up. I swear this stuff lasts forever.

To easily fill a plastic bag with the icing, put the bag in a glass first and fold the edges over the rim. Scoop in the icing, and you have an instant decorating bag!

Don’t those look gorgeous??

Once the cookies are completely cooled – and once you’ve made sure to place some waxed or parchment paper under the cooling racks – then go ahead and “wrap” your mummies.

Snip a small hole in the corner of that decorating bag you’ve just filled and drizzle it back and forth over the cookies, allowing it to overlap now and then.

When the icing is hard, CAREFULLY remove the cookies from the racks. {A couple of my guys lost their heads this way because I got impatient.} Just use a spatula instead of yanking them off and you should be fine.

And while the icing is still wet, you COULD add some eyes, by way of mini chocolate chips or mini M&Ms or something along those lines, but I don’t find that necessary.

I like the look of them without any eyeballs. More elegant. If mummies can be such a thing…

Chocolate Almond Mummy Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 large egg
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups confectionary (powdered) sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons meringue powder
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 to 4 tablespoons water

Blend the butter, egg, sugar, and almond extract. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture until fully incorporated. Cover and refrigerate for one hour.

Preheat oven to 325°F (170°C). On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about a 1/4 inch thick. Use a 2 to 3 inch cookie cutter in the shape of a gingerbread man for the mummies. Place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until you can lightly touch the cookie without leaving an indentation. Cool completely on wire racks.

For the icing, use a fork to blend the sugar, meringue powder, extract, and 3 tablespoons water. Continue to add about half a tablespoon at a time until you reach your desired consistency. You should be able to lift the fork out of the bowl and have the icing slowly drip off in a thick line.

Put the icing in a decorating bag or in a plastic baggie with the corner snipped off, and decorate the cookies by moving the icing back and forth over them. Be sure that you have something under the racks to catch the excess icing, such as waxed paper.

Once the icing has hardened, very carefully remove the cookies from the racks. Store covered.

**********

Here is the free printable PDF version of the recipe: Chocolate Almond Mummy Cookies

And a few things you may need:

Enjoy!

30Oct2014

Halloween Marshmallow Mummies

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Halloween Marshmallow Mummies

These Mummy Marshmallows are soooooo cute!

But to be perfectly honest: they were a pain to make.

The good news? I know what I did wrong and can help you avoid my mistakes! :) If you don’t do what I did, then they’re super, super easy to make.

I picked this particular combination because I liked the concept of these as a somewhat “reversed” mummy. Usually the mummy wrappings are white and the background dark, but I switched it around by using white marshmallows and a dark colored “wrapping.”

I suppose you could get some chocolate marshmallows and drizzle white candy melts over them, too.

Just a thought.

Halloween Marshmallow Mummies

You can see that I decorated them on the floor. This was to make it easier for my 4yo could help {her little sister was napping}. More casual, I guess you could say.

Anyway, to get to the heart of the matter: I used melted chocolate chips for this.

I don’t know why.

I bake with chocolate chips all the time and seem to repetitively forget that they’re best for just that – baking. NOT decorating.

To solve this problem, just use candy melts instead. The regular chocolate chips get too hot, harden too fast, and don’t melt as evenly in the microwave.

I also stuck them in a little plastic baggie. To my credit, that’s all I had available. But the tiny sandwich bags tend to burst open when you have something in them that you’re trying to squeeze out of a snipped corner. Thus: the half-cleaned blob on my tray. So do yourself a favor and use either a heavier, freezer-weight baggie or a traditional cake decorating bag with a metal tip. It’ll save your sanity.

Halloween Marshmallow Mummies

So…

To make the Mummy Marshmallows:

1. Place marshmallows on their side on waxed or parchment paper.

2. Drizzle melted Dark Chocolate Candy Melts over the tops of the marshmallow, moving from side to side.

3. Place two mini M&Ms on top of the chocolate as eyes {preferably with the “m” facing down} and drizzle a little chocolate over the eyes to make them appear partially hidden.

4. Let the chocolate harden. Store covered.

Halloween Marshmallow Mummies

An easy concept, really. And if you don’t make the mistakes I did, it will only take a few minutes to complete the entire project.

Maybe next year I’ll attempt this with more coffee in my system and remember to follow my own advice. :)

Roaming Rosie Signature

29Oct2014

Halloween Mini Pumpkin {Easter Egg} Hunt & Decorating Glitter Pumpkins

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

This Mini Pumpkin Hunt is just about one of the easiest Halloween projects you can do, and your kids are just about guaranteed to completely freak out over how awesome it is.

Well, at least those kids who love Easter egg hunts will freak out over the awesomeness. But I don’t know any kids who don’t love Easter egg hunts.

The setup is simple: buy a bunch of mini pumpkins, hide aforementioned mini pumpkins in your yard or house, hand your kids a bucket or basket in which to collect them, and stand back while they stampede.

Unfortunately for us, on the day I told my girls we were going to go outside and search for mini pumpkins, it rained.

A lot.

So, we relegated the search mostly to areas of flora that could be easily accessed with feet still firmly planted on the sidewalk and out of the wet grass and mud.

It didn’t even matter to them that it only took a couple of minutes to find all 10 that I’d hidden. They were so excited about it that they hid them again so I could find them. And again. And again…

Eventually we made it inside to decorate our mini pumpkins.

I’d pulled out some glitter glue and some glitter in silver and gold. Neutral but shiny.

I spread a disposable table cloth over the floor and some newspaper in the middle of it, opened up the containers of glue and glitter, and stood back.

Well, not very far back. They insisted I help, and, really, it’s pretty fun to bury your hands in glitter sometimes. :)

And the end result looked rather pretty.

Some had designs, some were completely covered, but they all looked so fun and sparkly.

It was much easier to clean up, by the way, than it looks.

Once you move the pumpkins and glue/glitter containers, simply fold the paper in half to make it into a partial funnel, and let the glitter slide back into the container again to be reused for another project.

28Oct2014

Fall French Toast

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

French toast is one of my favorite breakfast foods.

I’ve made it so many times that I usually don’t measure things, but I made sure to for this recipe. :) Either way, tho, feel free to adjust the measurements.

And this time, I changed things up by making it more autumn-themed. Great for Halloween, Thanksgiving, or fall in general.

I cut up the bread with leaf and acorn cookie cutters and used plenty of vanilla extract and cinnamon in the egg mix. Of course, you could substitute {or combine} it with almond extract, if you’d like. {If you’re looking for something a little more fruity – check out my Tropical Almond French Toast!}

The shapes were fun for the kids {and me} but if you don’t want to go to the trouble of cutting out them out, you can still make this french toast with normal square slices of bread.

Stale bread always works best for french toast. Fresh/soft bread tends to fall apart once you soak it in the egg mixture, and the stale bread is much easier to cut with the cookie cutters.

I didn’t have any stale bread, tho, so I laid out the bread pieces I was going to use on the counter the night before. Let it sit uncovered and not overlapping for the best results.

I used regular sandwich bread. A few slices of white and a few of wheat. I happened to have them both, and I loved the combination of colors.

For each slice of bread, I got 3 medium or a combo of 3 medium and small leaves and acorns. The extra bread can be used for croutons or breadcrumbs.

I used the Wilton Leaves and Acorns 9-Piece Aluminum Cookie Cutter Set, which you can see here:

Once you have your leaves and acorns cut out {you could also do this step the night before if it’s something you don’t think you can accomplish in the morning before your coffee kicks in}, then whisk together the other ingredients in a bowl.

Melt some butter on a griddle or in a large frying pan. Dip the bread pieces in the egg mixture, turning to coat both sides and allowing to sit for a minute so the bread soaks everything up.

Look at all that yummy cinnamon!

I stopped using my hands to lift the bread from the egg mix and transfer it to the griddle years ago. Too much breakage. And messiness. I use a fork for large slices of bread, but I used two for some of the more delicate leaves here. Didn’t want them falling apart.

Cook them for a few minutes on each side, until browned.

I suggest dipping a few pieces at a time and transferring them all to the griddle at once, so you have a couple of batches cooking at once.

When they’re finished, you can either transfer them directly to the serving platter, or put them in a oven safe dish in an oven that’s been preheated to a low temperature to keep them warm.

I served these with just maple syrup {see photo below}, but you could also sprinkle on some powdered sugar or some Cinnamon Sugar.

Fall French Toasts {with leaves & acorns}

Ingredients:

10 slices stale bread
1 cup whole milk
6 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla or almond extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

The bread is easier to work with if it’s stale, so if you only have fresh bread, leave it out on the counter the night before.

Cut leaf and acorn shapes from the bread slices. Use a combination of white and wheat for more color variation. Reserve remaining bread pieces for breadcrumbs or croutons.

Preheat a griddle to medium heat (about 350°F).

In a shallow bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon.

Melt some butter on the surface of the hot griddle. Dip the bread pieces in the milk mixture, turning to coat both sides, and lifting with one or two forks so that the shapes don’t break apart. Place the bread on the griddle.

Cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.

Serve immediately, or keep warm in a low temperature oven.

Serve with maple syrup, and optionally with powdered sugar or a cinnamon sugar mix.

**********

And click here to print the free PDF version of the recipe: Fall French Toast

Enjoy!