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Exciting News! Twitter Party Panelist!!

6 Dec

Guess what? On Thursday night, that’s right… THIS Thursday night, December 8, 2011, I’ve been asked to be a panelist on a Twitter Party with HERSHEY’S and the Mom It Forward blog as part of their GNO (Girls Night Out) Twitter Party events. I’m very excited! I’ve been at a Twitter Party before (as “at” as you can get, sitting on your laptop) but I’ve never been asked to be a panelist before.

I’m not sure what to expect other than lots of fun tips about holiday baking and lots of recipes to share, so if you don’t have a Twitter name yet, go and get one and RSVP at Mom It Forward for the party! Of course, my Twitter name is @WholeBagofChips!
See you then!

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Crafts for Kids: Snowball Snowmen

6 Dec

Yesterday’s post was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Butterballs, oftentimes known as Chocolate Chip Snowballs. It was a recipe that the kids could help out with, by rolling the batter or even by doing some of the measuring of the ingredients or by dumping in the ENTIRE BAG of chocolate chips for the batter. When I bake with my kids I try to find at least one thing for each of the three of them to do.

For today’s kid’s activities, I thought I’d capitalize on the “snowball” aspect of these cookies. Last year another mom, Theresa and I ran the “Brown Baggers” book club for our daughters’ second grade classes. It was a group that met during lunch and recess once a month to hear a story and do a craft related to that story.

This is a great story that leads to endless hours of building "snowmen" inside your home!

We used to alternate planning the activities, each taking a month. One of the months the book that my friend chose was called “Snowballs” by Lois Ehlert. You can find it here on Amazon.com if you’d like to purchase it. (And no, in case you are wondering, I have no connection to Amazon.com at all.) I had actually not seen the book before, but she had it at her house, her kids loved it and it was perfect for the season. She came up with a simple, fun activity for the kids to do to go along with it and they loved it. That’s the activity I’m sharing with you today.

Alexandra and her friend Graycee recently made some snowmen at our house, reminiscent of the ones in "Snowballs."

The storyline in the book will encourage your children to find ordinary objects around your house to turn their “snowballs” into snowmen. They can use paper plates for their snowballs or you can cut white circles (or if they’re old enough, they can.) Some of the items you might want to provide for them for decorations (depending on their ages for choking hazards): buttons, popping corn, stickers, pom poms, sunflower seeds, scraps of paper, rubber stamps and inks, pipe cleaners, feathers, artificial flower petals bottle caps…the possibilities are endless! Your children can make a snowman or woman or an entire snow family, depending on how long you want them to be crafting.

The second graders that we worked with had tons of fun with this story and the super-easy snowman craft that went with it. I hope your children will too! And thanks again to Theresa, for coming up with this activity last year!

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Crafts for Kids: Thumbprint Art

2 Dec

Yesterday I posted my first “Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day” and it was for Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies.

I mentioned several ways your kids could help out with the cookie baking if you wanted them to. But, I figure that all that cookie rolling and thumbprinting might get kids into the mood for…..thumbprint art!

Many of you know that for eleven years, until this past August 2011 I was a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, teaching adults and kids how to work with stamps and inks for paper crafting. In fact, in 2004 and 2005 I was one o the top 100 demonstrators in the country! It was a job I loved very much and it combined a lot of the things I love, including teaching and kids. This project today reminds me of my SU days!

A fun thing for kids to do with ink is to use their fingerprints to turn them into drawings. I actually own a whole book about it: Ed Emberley’s Fingerprint Drawing Book and it’s a book I’ve had since I was little.

This is the Ed Emberley book I have at my house.

You can find Ed Emberley’s book as well as several of his others, here on Amazon.com if you’re interested in buying it for your kids.

The cool thing about it is that besides teaching the basics of thumbprint art, it also has seasonal and holiday thumbprint art pages as well! It gives kids hours of fun thumbprint art to keep them busy. I also find with my kids, once you get them going, their own innate creativity keeps them going on their own for hours (which gives you time to mix up more cookie batter!)

a Christmas page from Ed Emberley's book

If you don't want to do Christmas thumbprint art, you can do winter instead!

My personal recommendations when choosing ink pads is: be sure to use water-based ink (if you see Pigment Ink, think PERMANENT INK!!) Water-based ink washes off easily with soap and water or with baby wipes. I also always recommend using a paper tablecloth (Chinette makes them and you can reuse them as long as they’re dry and not ripped too badly.) Paper absorbs the ink that gets on the table, where plastic doesn’t and once it gets on the plastic tablecloth it stays wet and gets on arms, elbows, clothes etc.

Dress for mess when your kids work with ink, and the kids could even wear an apron if you’re nervous about clothing.

You can have your kids make scenes using their fingerprints or they can make Christmas cards, pictures for family members, teachers, friends, etc. My daughter Alex could make an entire book of her artwork. For her everything is made into a book. Your kids could do that as well, make a book, write a story to go along with their fingerprint characters.

Well there you have it, my first cookie and crafts double feature for you! What do you think??

I bet you’re wondering what I will come up with next, right?!

Just wait and see…

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Big Announcement for December Cookie and Craft Lovers

30 Nov

December is coming!

Christmas is coming!!!

Holidays are coming!!!!

Family is coming!!!!!

Stressed yet? Don’t be!

This time of year can either be really awful or really special. For most of us, myself included, it’s a little bit of both. I love to bake and I’m always so proud of my cookies for my trays, but it’s hard to find time to carve out to make them all when you have little kids running around. Therefore, many of the recipes I will be posting will be recipes your kids can help you with (aka rolled cookies) so that it keeps them occupied when you’re baking and it cuts your prep time in half. No, all the rolled cookies may not be exactly the same size or shape, but really does that matter? (And if it does, just kind of re-roll them a little bit when you take them to put them on the tray. I’ve done that!)

However, so often you don’t just want them to be occupied, but you want what they are doing to be something they enjoy too, something meaningful for them. Therefore, I’m going to alternate my recipe postings with seasonal activities for the kids as well. They will be things like crafts, special stories to read, gifts to make, things like that which often coordinate somehow with the cookie recipes I’m posting (okay, once a teacher, always a teacher, clearly!) Some of the crafts will be things I’ve done with my kids in the past or things they’ve done at school and brought home that I loved, or even gifts I’ve received that were handmade that I loved. Times are tight for all of us, so any handmade gifts they can make is one less thing we need to buy! The stories I post are just the ones we have at our house, but my kid always love when I pull out the seasonal stories each December. (I always wish I did that every season, but I don’t ever think of it any other time of year!)

So are you ready? If so, be sure to check out the first recipe on December 1! The coordinating book and craft will be featured on December 2! And no…no hints!

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