SURPRISE PLAY DOUGH

If you have been looking for a recipe for play dough for your classroom or even your kids at home, this one is spectacular!

Ingredients:
flour
salt
cream of tartar (spice aisle of grocery store)
water
oil (vegetable or canola)
imitation vanilla flavoring
food coloring
waxed paper

Combine in saucepan: 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup salt, 1 teaspoon cream of tarter

Add 1 cup of water and 1 Tablespoon of oil

Whisk until smooth

Cook over medium heat until play dough is nearly set (stirring with a wood spoon occasionally and 'flipping' play dough over so it doesn't stick). Then, add 1 Tablespoon of imitation vanilla flavoring.


Stir until vanilla is blended


Remove and cool on waxed paper

Knead the play dough until smooth and form into a ball (or a few balls if you've tripled the recipe) and press down with your thumb to make an indention. Place 2-3 drops of food coloring into the indention and "close up the gap" so that you can't tell what color the play dough ball has inside.

Give kids the play dough and instruct them to knead the play dough to see what color they get.

The colored play dough balls

**This is the best play dough recipe I've ever found. The vanilla flavoring seems to improve the texture and adds a nice scent as well ! **

***Store play dough in Ziploc bag or air tight container.***

A huge "THANK YOU" to my friend Scarlett who told me about this recipe and was kind enough to take pictures! I love this recipe and cannot wait to let my kids play with this yummy smelling play dough.

PEACH COBBLER

Hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day! I couldn't let it slip away without having my husband's favorite dessert - Peach Cobbler!

This Peach Cobbler recipe is another yummy dessert we like to make around our home! This is definitely quick and easy with only 3 ingredients. A large can of sliced peaches (or 2 small cans), a cake mix, and a stick of butter. Can you believe it? Only those 3 ingredients!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Empty the can of peaches into your baking dish.

Empty the bag of cake mix evenly onto the top of the peaches. Then cover the top of the cake mix with butter squares or you can melt the butter in the microwave and pour onto the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until the top is light brown how you may like it.

Then cut a piece and cover with your favorite ice cream!

How easy! If you ever need a quick, inexpensive dessert and delicious dessert - here ya go!

Gap Gift Card Winner

Congratulations to......Mandie!! You are our $20 Gap Gift Card winner!! Thank you so much to all that entered. We truly appreciate all of our visitors and your sweet comments. It puts a smile on our face and encourages us so much to read the positive feedback. Thanks again and keep checking back for our next giveaway!!

Easy No-Sew Tutu Tutorial and a GIVEAWAY!

If you need some quick and easy tutu instructions you're at the right place. These are great gifts and great for the kids to play in! They love pretending to be little ballerinas. Great for pictures too!!

All you need is: 6" wide tulle (2 or 3 rolls) and some No-Roll wide elastic. That's it!!

You can make these tutu's as long as you would like them to be but this one is the average shorter tutu. I cut a bunch of strips of tulle using a 2 foot measuring stick. Each piece will be folded in half later so if you want your tutu to be all the way to the ground you will need to cut extra long pieces. I use about 50 yards of tulle for one tutu. Sometimes more but at least that much. Cutting more strips makes the tutus look fuller.

Make sure you buy the "No-Roll" elastic. This is very important. You can decide how wide you would like for the elastic to be but I think the wider the better.

1. You will need to measure your child's waist and subtract that number by 3. That is how long your elastic needs to be. Then you can zig-zag stitch your elastic together.

2. You are going to tie knots with your tulle all around the elastic so it's easier just to put the elastic around your leg so that it stays in place.

3. Take one piece of tulle and fold it in half. Make sure the folded end is at the bottom and place it under the elastic like the picture above.

4. Now, here is how you are going to tie the knot. It's a little hard to explain but I hope the pictures will help. Take the two ends of the tulle that are at the top and loop them down and under where the hole is from the folded tulle.

5. Continue pulling the tulle down and use your thumb on the other hand to place the knot and tighten as you pull.

Hopefully this picture shows it a little better.

6. When you have pulled it all the way through your know should look like this on your thumb. You can adjust it as needed to make sure its tight.

7. Your first knot is complete!

8. Now you just need to make a bunch more!

9. Continue all the way around until it's as full as you would like for it to be. When you stretch the elastic you might see empty spaces to fill in.

10. Let them play their hearts out!!

It's time for another giveaway!! Who wants a $20 Gap Gift Card?? Enter your name and email in the comments section below to enter. This giveaway will end Thursday 9:00 pm central . Winner will be randomly picked using random.org and will be announced on Friday morning! You may enter once daily. Good luck!!

This giveaway has ended. Please check back June 19th for the winner!

Linoleum Mat: Tutorial #1

Some talented ladies at church came up with a great idea for a "Girl's Night Out!" They called it 'DIP and DABBLE'! Dip for all the different kinds of spinach dip, cheese dip or whatever they decide to have on that particular night. Along with some delicious sweets of course. And Dabble for the creative piece of artwork we design that night and bring home.

Last month we designed and painted linoleum mats. It was our choice what we wanted to paint, but they brought a couple of mats for examples to go by. Linoleum can be bought at Home Depot, Lowe's or a local Carpet Store. For this project, only a small piece is needed. So, you may even get lucky when you head out to a store. Ask if they have any scrap pieces of linoleum and they may give it to you for free.

All you need is the piece of linoleum, craft paint, brushes, blue paint tape (if you are like me) and a small can of polyurethane to seal the mat after it is completed.

As you can see, this mat is linoleum side up. The opposite side of the linoleum will be what is painted. The blue paint tape is easy to use for straight lines or other designs. This particular mat was for my kids. It is going in their playroom! The playroom has a door to the backyard, so I thought this mat would be great for traffic going outside.

My daughter helped tape a square in the middle to paint. She picked out the color and I let her have at it! Any type of stencils can be used for this or you can freehand everything. My oldest kids made their hand prints and my baby made her footprints! After the mat is painted, let it completely dry (maybe 24 hours or less), then seal it with a coat of polyurethane!

This was my first one and I wanted the B for our last name. It sits inside my front door!

My friend Cindy made this one for her kitchen! I love it!

Another friend (Scarlett) made this one for her kitchen as well!

This is so much fun to do and so easy! I can't wait to paint some more!

Easy and Delicious Crescent Cinnamon Rolls

Debbie, a friend from church, told me about this recipe for Crescent Cinnamon Rolls and I just had to try it myself. It's so easy to make and my kids absolutely love them!! I can tell this is gonna be a favorite at my house for sure.

All you need is:

2 packs of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
cinnamon
sugar
butter

There is no magic number to how much you will need of each of these ingredients. You just add as much or as little as you like.

Roll out both your crescent rolls and pinch together all the triangles so that you have two large rectangles. Then pinch the two rectangles together so that you have almost one large square.

Debbie said to lather the butter on with your hands, so I did. Messy but fun.
Sprinkle on as much cinnamon as you like. I wasn't stingy.

Same thing with the sugar. Don't be shy, the more the better!

Now start to roll the dough up into it looks like one long log.

It should look like this when you're done.

Use a knife and cut 1.5"-2" sections. They will look a little odd and may even come apart. Just press them back together and they'll be just fine. Stick these in the oven at 375 for about 12 minutes.

Now for the icing. You'll need about 2 cups of confectioners sugar, 3 tbs of Half & Half, and a 1/2 tsp of vanilla. You might have to play with this and add milk or sugar to give it the thickness that you like.

It should be thick enough so that it does not run easily off the spoon.

In the oven and almost ready.

When they're finished baking take them out and drizzle the icing all over! Eat 'em now when they're hot!! We would love to know.....has anyone tried these before?