Galaxy Slime

This slime didn’t turn out quite as hoped, but it was still a lot of fun! The original pin used liquid food coloring vs. the Wilton icing coloring that I had on hand, so the results were more tar monster than galaxy slime.

This slime requires a few more ingredients than the Frozen slime we made yesterday, but nothing to crazy. We used Sta-Flo liquid starch, Elmer’s clear glue, assorted fine glitter and food coloring. Liquid or Wilton, maker’s choice!
You start by pouring your glue into a bowl. Add in food coloring at your discretion. For your galaxy effect, use purple and blue. My mistake was adding black, that gave me the tar look.

Once it’s all one big mess, add in a little liquid starch. Don’t go crazy with it, you can always add more as needed, but unless you have more glue, you’ll have to scrap it if you add too much starch.
This is the messy part. Dig your hands in and mush it all together! The Wilton coloring turned my hands funny colors for a bit, but it did wash off. For some reason when I make icing, the same coloring is impossible to get off…….

Arthur wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It got too sticky after playing with it, so we added a little more starch and it was perfect.

Is anyone else remembering the tar monster in the original Scooby Doo? Tony, who loves the show, was very amused by the reference.

I think this is my favorite part of the slime. Holding it up and just letting it’s own weight stretch it out!
Happy sliming all!

Frozen Slime

I purchased supplies for this pin a few days ago, but the timing didn’t quite work out. Then today we have been crafting and playing fools. We went to the theater this morning to see Lego Movie, its part of their summer movie program so we only paid $.50 a piece. My kind of deal. So now, Tony is off playing with his buddy, Leo, and the kids and I are putzing around the house.
Chiara loves Frozen! As evidenced by her Frozen themed birthday. I knew as soon as I saw this Frozen Slime recipe, I knew we had to do this!

All you need is a bottle of blue glitter glue and up to 8 oz of Sta-Flo liquid starch. Both of which I picked up at Walmart, super convenient, you know, working there and all. The starch was super cheap too, so that was a little exciting for me.
The original pinner called for the ingredients to be chilled, but Chiara didn’t want it to be cold. After perusing some other slime sites, more to come on that later, I decided it would be fine at room temperature.
I started by putting the glue in the bowl and just putting small amounts of liquid starch in at a time. Remember that you can always add more, but if you have no more glue to add (which I didn’t) you have to scrap it.

Once we got to a good consistency, where it would ooze just a little over the sides of my hands, I let Chiara have at it!

She was having a ton of fun with it, but it started getting a little overly sticky, so we had to pause and add more liquid starch. Too sticky, add starch, too gooey, add glue (or start over).

Ignoring the face she’s making, we got an awesome consistency that let us stretch it out, almost like looking through a sheet of ice!

The stretchy fun just never ends!
The site said that the slime should keep for a few months in an air tight container, so we sealed them in some old olive jars that I save for random Pinterest stuff, like this!

Once Tony got home, he had some memories of how he played with Gak back in the day. So aside from making fart noises with it, he showed the kids how to blow bubbles with the slime. Great parenting at work……

Frozen slime is on the bottom (hopefully you realized this) and the top jar will be covered tomorrow. See you then!
Happy sliming all!!

Why the Hate?

Ever since Twilight was released, the movies at least, there have been haters. Anything that rockets to the top that fast will of course be subjected to criticism.

The first thing that annoys me about this fact, is that you should never put down what someone is reading. There are so many people in this world who can’t read, and even more yet who don’t want to read. If someone chooses to read, no matter what it is, it should never be put down. I don’t care if it’s Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey or War and Peace, if you want to read it, read it!

The second thing that upsets me about the Twilight bashing, is the fact that everyone is so quick to compare it to other books. Yes, the Harry Potter series is amazing. I’ve read them all and love them all! Why are people so quick to compare the two? The plots are different, the character base is different the intended audience was different. Yes, they both launched to the top of bestseller lists, yes they both become popular outside of their intended audience, but that’s about all they have in common. There are a lot of people that love both series, leave these people (including me) alone. I would never say that one is better than the other. Does Harry Potter have a deeper message? Yes. You know what though? Sometimes I just want a simple read where I can have some feel-good moments and that’s all. Reading for the sake of reading is sometimes enough!

The third and final bothersome thing about the Twilight haters is the assumption that Bella and Edward are everyone’s favorite characters. Are they the main characters? Of course they are. No one has a problem accepting that Harry, Ron and Hermione aren’t necessarily your favorite characters. If you’ve actually seen the movies or read the books, you can understand that there are other amazing characters to look up to. Is Bella a great role model? I don’t think so. I would never get that depressed over a guy, even my husband, who I love second only to my children!
As you may have realized from the photo I attached, I’m a huge Jasper and Alice fan. Both of these characters have traits to be admired. Alice was alone when she woke to her new life. Instead of falling into despair or going crazy with her new vampire life, she picks herself up and moves on, knowing something better is coming. Yes, she had inside information, but that could also have led to the crazies….. Jasper started out as a traditional vampire, killing humans and even other vampires. He chose to change himself, try and be better. He was doing ok, but when he met Alice, he understood that he needed her help. Sometimes in life we need to realize that accepting help doesn’t make us weaker.

The next time you or someone you know starts bashing Twilight, or any book really, ask them to stop and think. Do they even understand the story? Have they read the book? Are they basing their opinions on what reviews or society in general has said about it? Don’t be the one that says something hurtful and makes someone question their choices about reading materials. Especially if you’re not an avid reader yourself.
If you’ve actually read the book and didn’t care for it, make it a debate instead of a put down. Try to be mature about it…….
All I’m saying really is that what appeals to you, may not appeal to others or vice versa. You’re not always right and despite what I say, I’m not either. Let people read what they choose.
Read on people, read on!

Balloon Rockets

Super fun and super easy! Is there anything else I need to say about this activity? It’s summer. Kids need activities, or kids get bored, and bored kids make mommy and daddy crazy. End of story!
This was an interesting pin I found a few months ago, I decided today was perfect! The kids were fantastic while we had someone in to look at the basement today, so they deserved something fun.
This was really easy, so I liked it that much more. All you need is a straw, a balloon, some yarn and tape. I blew up the balloon (be sure you don’t tie it off!), then I had Tony tape the straw to the balloon. He then fed the yarn through the straw.

I had taped the yarn to the wall across the living room, the original pin says to use chairs, but I wanted a good distance.

Tony held the string tight, I was holding the balloon closed, we did a count down and released! We ended up doing this about a dozen times before I wanted a break. The kids were loving it though! We’ll definitely be doing this again, in fact I left the yarn attached to the wall. It’s curled up on the fish tank and waiting for action!
The original pinner was talking about how this has scientific applications, a force exerted in a direction, and so on and so forth. I’m sure when the kids get older, I’ll get into all that, but at 7 and 4, they couldn’t care less about the physics of it all.
I did have a video of this working, but apparently I can’t upload it without paying some kind of fee. If I ever work it out, I’ll come back and fix it!
So just have fun with it!

Writing with Sparklers

I love playing with my camera! I love taking photos to capture moments in time. Once something happens, it will never be quite the same again. This moment will probably happen again, but I was excited nonetheless, that we could capture it on camera!
I have a nice camera, it’s nothing ultra fancy, but it works great for me!

Not the best picture of the camera itself, but it is a Canon Powershot SX130. Favorite feature overall is the 12x optical zoom!
Again, not the best picture, but on the right hand side, about half way up the camera, you may see the option for ISO. This is the feature I utilized to photograph the sparkler writing.
If your camera has this option, what you want to do is set it to the lowest possible number. I’m sure an actual photographer could tell you exactly what ISO is, but all I can say is that it slows down the shutter speed.
After a but of experimenting, I realized I would have to do one letter at a time. Fancier cameras will enable you to slow down the shutter speed even more, doing longer phrases or designs, but I managed to have fun with mine. Especially utilizing a collage maker afterwards!

This one was a little trickier. I actually used 2 sparklers, one for each side. Took several shots, with Tony manning the camera, but I was pretty pleased with it! For those of you who are Mortal Instruments fans, you can just see Jace inside the heart. It was a coincidence, whether you believe me or not!
Fourth of July has just passed so keep an eye out for good deals on sparklers! Have some fun outside, and bring your camera along!

Colored Deviled Eggs

I’m not going to lie to you, I was going for red, white and blue for the Fourth of July. Apparently red food coloring ends up pink, but it’s ok, because Chiara was very excited about eating pink eggs.
You start by using my super simple method of hard boiling eggs and let them cool. Then I just tapped the eggs against the counter and peeled the shell off. Once you’ve peeled your eggs, you cut the eggs in half, standard deviled egg fashion. Then you put your yolks in a bowl for later.
The fun comes next, when you get the food coloring involved. I have to take a minute, in my Harry Potter nerd-ness,  to tell you how excited I was about how the food coloring looked like Death Eaters flying around:

At least a little bit!

Then you let your eggs sit for a bit until they are the desired color. I left mine about 15 minutes.
While the eggs are sitting in the food coloring, you can mix your yolks up. I put in some mayonnaise, a little bit of mustard and a splash of pickle juice. Salt and pepper to taste. I don’t put amounts down, only because it will vary based on how many eggs you’re making. 
Once your eggs are done dying (haha), your yolks are mixed up, then you let the eggs dry out a bit, scoop your yolk mixture into the egg and sprinkle paprika over it.
Deliciousness for every occasion!

Easy Hard Boiled Eggs

It simply doesn’t get any easier than this! Just a short post, one of the many things I did over the holiday weekend. Tony was all geared up to boil some water and I called time out!
You preheat your oven to 325° and once it’s up to temp, place the eggs in the oven for 30 minutes.
Tony set them up on this little rack, but the eggs can go directly on the oven racks.
Afterwards I just tapped the eggs on the edge of the sink to bust up the shell. It peeled right off. Much easier than water boiled eggs!
This makes deviled eggs much less time consuming, so I see us having more really soon!
This was a picture with a broken link, so I can’t reference the original idea. Sorry guys!

Newspaper Basket

Pretty cute, right? I was sorting through some buildup on my server today, finding mostly mail, a phone book and 2 old newspapers. Gee, don’t I have something I can do with this? Maybe something pinned to my ‘Paper Crafts’ board? Of course I do!
The original site was a little interesting, with ads showing up on the top and bottom of my screen, I had a view of maybe three inches of the actual site. Luckily the directions are simple!
You start by taking a newspaper and cutting the paper at the ‘seam’ so you end up with 11-12 pieces that look like this.

Then you roll them length wise, about an inch in diameter, then press them flat, until you end up with this:

To form your base, you need to take 8 of your strips, four each way and you interlock them, like so:

The next step, I found a way to cheat a little bit. You take one of your strips and tape the ends together.

Now, you just alternate the sides, as you would with any basket weave, continuing up your basket’s sides.

Once you get towards the top of your upward pointing pieces, you can fold over the ends to tuck them in. The picture is a little weird to understand, but I bent the piece over and tucked it under my last ‘paper ring’.

The basket itself was pretty cute. I dressed it up a little with one of Chiara’s ribbons, as seen above, and it turns out that it’s sturdier than you’d think!

It’s actually sturdy enough to hold all of these toys without ripping! Not bad for about 15 minutes of my time!