Chocolate makes everything better!

When dropping off E at daycare, I brought some little goodies to his teachers for New Years. I tackled snickers popcorn, which is A-mazing!, and handed that out. His teacher, Ms. K, told me about a snack she has made. It sounded yummy, and I had to do to the grocery store anyways, so I thought I'd test it out. I'm not sure what she called it...so I'm calling it Cinnamon Comb Trash!

1 box of Honey Comb cereal

1 box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal

1 bag of miniature marshmallows

1 package of White Almond Bark

Mix cereal and marshmallows together well. I used plastic grocery bags and shook them up. Then I put the cereal mix in a big bowl to await it's next venture. 

 Melt the Almond Bark and then drizzle over cereal mix. 

Next I lay this yummy-ness out on wax paper to dry. Try not to eat any during this process!

Once hardened, break apart and serve! Thanks Ms. K!

Amazing Carpet Cleaner

When we bought our house it had no carpet. None. Not even fancy flooring. Again, none. It was cold, grey, ugly concrete. The house needed some finishing work, and flooring was one of them. Throughout the 7 years of being here, we've finally gotten carpet in the bedrooms (A must prior to having E) but the living room and kitchen are still that cold, grey, ugly concrete. Eventually we plan on putting down wood floors. Eventually. You know, when we win that lotto.
To make the living room less cold, we did invest in a giant rug. It's helped, and throughout the years it's taken some hits of random stains. In lieu of redecorating and getting a new chair, I sought out to find a carpet cleaner-that worked. Alas, I found something and it was all with ingredients I had at home!

The spot

First, sprinkle Baking Soda down on the stain. Even if it's been there for years. The Baking Soda helps draw out odors, so I sprinkled it down all over the rug. Leave it be for 10 mins or so.

While the Baking Soda is working, mix 2 cups of warm water with 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar and 1 tablespoon of dawn dish soap. Stir it together well so all the ingredients get to know each other.

After 10 mins, vaccum up the soda. Then with a white rag, attack the stain with your mix. You might have to rub and use some elbow greese depending on how bad the stain is.

Spot is GONE!

Blot dry with the rag, and then vacuum again. Viola! Stain is gone, and a much cheaper option than spending tons of money on carpet cleaners. Now, I did read that if this doesn't work then you will probably need to have one of those heavy duty carpet cleaners come in. 

Christmas Playdough

My son is 17 months and goes to a wonderful daycare. I really wish I could just be the arts and crafts director somewhere because I love sharing and hearing ideas on what he's doing! For Christmas he needed to bring stocking stuffers for his fellow classmates. Well, me being me, I couldn't settle for just a plain ole generic toy. Not that there's anything wrong with it...I just wanted to DO something. So I searched, and searched, and searched. It's really a hard age group to do something for since they still try to eat everything! His teacher said playdough would be ok, so I went to searching.
I found a recipe that's edible and modified it slightly. So I will share!

Christmas Playdough

• 5 cups water
• 5 cups flour
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 3 tablespoons cream of tartar
• 10 tablespoons vegetable oil
• food coloring 
• peppermint essential oil (optional and I bought at a Natural Groceries for $7 a little bottle, but a few drops is all you need)
• Glitter (optional)
• Bags to store the playdough in 

• Mix water, salt, cream of tartar, and food coloring in a large pot. Heat on low until everything dissolves stirring frequently. 
• Add oil, then flour (I would suggest one cup at a time). Stir until playdough pulls away from pan and is no longer sticky and make sure it's to a playdough state. Some friends tried making this and failed because it didn't get hot enough.
• Dump dough on your counter (I placed wax paper down for fear of possible staining but it doesn't).
• Let it cool off some, then knead well. During the kneading process I added peppermint essential oil and glitter. It stays warm for a while, so just be careful you don't burn your hands!
  

 At Target I found these cute little Christmas Tree ornaments that are fill-able, so it was perfect for storing the playdough in! This makes a ton, and lasts for a really long time. I liked that it isn't toxic if a kiddo does a taste test. 

I searched online for some cute printable Christmas designs and attached them to card stock to write what it was inside and who it's from. 

So far behind! Socktopus

Yikes I've been so busy doing stuff I've found from Pintrest, I haven't blogged about a single one! So here I am playing catch up. For my first project, I did a Socktopus. I swear I saw the idea on Pintrest, but since searching for it I haven't located anything. I do apologize I don't have pictures of the actual project in progress, but it's very simple!

I found some cheap holiday socks that had cute designs on them. You could use any sock, I just choose holiday since I was giving them away as Christmas goodies. :)

Stuff the toe of the sock with poly fill. When I originally saw the post it said paper sacks. I thought that might be noisy...so I debated on rice. Then I thought that might stink. So to be kid friendly, I went with poly fill. Very cheap stuff and you get a TON. You can make the head as big as you like really. There's no right or wrong here!

Next take a rubber band to tie off the head. You want it tight so there's no insides falling out! How awful would that be!

Now you're ready to cut the socktopus' legs. I just went straight up making 2 legs at a time that way they where even. I hope that makes sense. You can make as many legs as you'd like! I then cut the end of the socks off (the part that holds to your leg) to make the socktopus' legs curl up a bit.

I added big googly eyes on the head, and I thought it was cute to place them just above the seam where your toes would be to make it look like a face. I hot glued those on, and then hot glued ribbon around the rubber band to ensure it's sealed off and to make it cute.

Ta-Da! The kids loved these things!

My love

I decided to start another blog. Oh joy. But this time it'll be about the trail and errors of pinterest finds! I figure it'd be a good idea to compile everything I've tried to either cook, bake or make from pinterest and share them here. I'll even try to do some step by step photos, but I've already made a few before I got this brilliant idea, so you'll have to settle without.