We went to a Valentine’s Day party today with some other homeschoolers and I was so impressed with all the craftiness!!

I  mustache you to be my Valentine!!!

Hearts!

Oragami hearts

Fortune cookie Valentines—cut out a felt circle, glue a pipe cleaner down the center, insert fortune and fold up and sqeeze into fourtune cookie shape! Genius!!

Look how cute these pins are!!!!

Molly made these. Hershey kisses, cellophane, flower petals, floral wire and tape. So cute!!

I LOVE these!!!! We used a die cut machine to cut the word love out of cardboard and then wrapped it in yarn. I first saw these here. We also used pipe cleaners to make the word LOVE and then wrapped those in yarn also.

Aren’t these so cute???? You still have a few days to get your Valentine craft on! Hope something here inspires you!

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Post tags: craft, Crafts, floral wire, flower petals, fortune, fortune cookie, fourtune, hershey, hershey kisses, homeschool, homeschoolers, mustache, Oragami, pipe cleaners, project, Valentine, valentine craft, valentine hearts, valentine s day, valentines, Valentines---cut, yarn

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Now as much as I would like to say this was my great idea..I found it on Pinterest. I have said it before, I LOVE PINTEREST!! And I will say it again, I LOVE PINTEREST!!  As a visual person, this site takes the cake!

These were easy to make and called for only a few ingredients. You just need a little time and space.  And having a little helper around really helps!!

First arrange pretzel sticks into a star pattern on a lined cookie sheet or large tray

Next melt some chocolate (white or dark)

Now pour that melted chocolate into a plastic baggie and cut a tiny bit of the tip off. This makes it so much easier to make webs around the pretzels. Be sure to drizzle the points in the middle together really well and make sure to hit each stick on your way around the web!

Next we tried putting 2 raisins into the center of melted chocolate for spider bodies. Then we covered the raisins with more melted chocolate and made some legs.

And after about 4 or 5 of these my helper quit on me! So I was on my own. I decided to simplify– but I must say I like my version better!! I skipped the spider in the center and just shook some Halloween sprinkles into the melted chocolate. Ta da…

Just the right combination of salty and sweet. These were a big hit with both kids and adults alike!

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Post tags: Cake, choc, chocolate, Cook, COOKIE, halloween, halloween parties, halloween season, Kids, melted chocolate, PepperPaints, Pinterest, potluck, Pretzel, pretzel sticks, Pretzels, Pumpkin, pumpkin cake, Snack, snacks, Spider, spider web, star pattern, Web

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350 degrees

12 x 18 would work  I used a Bundt pan–greased and floured

Beat:

1 1/4 cups oil

2 cups brown sugar

Add:

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups canned pumpkin (or one 15 oz can)

4 eggs–beat in 1 at a time

Gradually beat in:

2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Bake 30 minutes or longer for Bundt pan

When cool can be frosted or left as is. I whipped up a cream cheese frosting that I could eat all by itself by the bowl full!! I tinted it orange for a festive touch!

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Post tags: Bake, baking, Bundt, bundt pan, Cake, canned pumpkin, cinnamon, cream cheese frosting, halloween, Pumpkin, pumpkin cake, Thanksgiving

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Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday to celebrate the dead.

While I was away on vacation another Mom lead our art class at Co op. I left her with printed pictures of sugar skulls and masks created for the holiday to share with the kids. They used acrylic paints to paint the blank masks I bought at Michaels. Then used a hot glue gun to attach fake flowers and ribbons. They came out really great!!

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Post tags: art, art class, day of the dead, day of the dead masks, Dead, dia de los muertos, holiday, mexican holiday, Michaels, sugar, sugar skulls

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Today is Learn Nothing Day

It’s absurd isn’t it? The sheer idea that you could ever learn NOTHING? Especially in a whole 24 hours. I have barely even been up for an hour and I have learned about a Gum Wall in Seattle, How to Regrow Celery, I found this thought provoking and mostly funny!, Niagara Falls goes Rainbow for Marriage equality in NY and that is just while having my first cup of coffee with my best friends fb and twitter!

With more failure to come today– I plan on listening to THIS , re reading HOW TO STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST and finishing up a book I am reading. I haven’t even considered all of the  unplanned learning that will inevitably happen while I go about my day.

We are all failures at learning nothing. It is a non discriminating holiday. Age, race, sex or location can not keep you from learning. And it’s a great thing to be a failure at!! Congratulations-you win!!

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Post tags: blog, blogs, holiday, Learning, school

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May your weekend be filled with lots of OOoohs and AAahhs

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Post tags: iphone, Ooooh, photo, photos, weekend

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We talked about The Linares Family of Mexico and their spectacular art of paper mache. Here is a link chock full of information and links to some of their works.               http://www.driftwood-dreams.co.uk/learn_papier_mache/history.htm

The Linares Family is well known for the mythical like beasts they create known as alebrijes. Popular artists like the Linares are known as cartoneros.  Most cartoneros make fanciful paper mache objects for major celebrations during the year, most notable Day of the Dead and Easter week.  I didn’t know this when I planned out six weeks worth of our Unschooling Co-op art lessons but it ended up perfect timing that we made these the week before Easter!  After looking at some of Felipe Linares Mendoza’s work we created our own little beasts out of foil, covered in newspaper and masking tape.

They were then covered in strips of newspaper moistened in a slightly watered down glue mixture.

We left them to dry until the following week when we painted them. We talked about the style of painting and the patterns used by the Mexican artists and the kids were encouraged to paint their alebrijes in the style of the cartoneros work we looked at.

I LOVE them!! They turned out great!! I would really like to try out more paper mache activities.

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Post tags: alebrijes, art, Artist, cartoneros, celebrations, class, co-op, day of the dead, Easter, easter week, Felipe Linares, glue, Kids, little beasts, Masking, masking tape, mendoza, mexican artists, Mexico, op art lessons, Paint, Painting, paper mache, papier mache, photo, photos, spectacular art, unschool, unschooling, week before easter

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Post tags: photo, top o the mornin

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We used liquid water colors to paint our gift bags. I barely diluted the water colors keeping them as bright as possible. Open the bags up to keep the paint from bleeding through.

We let the colors run together on some and painted designs on others.

Take care not to tear them when they are wet. Once they dry they are ready to be filled with a gift or a lunch!

Look at the pretty bags at Artsyville! Actually look at all the pretty things there!!

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Post tags: art, Bags, blog, blogs, cake craft, color, colors, Columbus, craft, design, DIY, gift bags, liquid water, lunch, lunch bags, Paint, photo, photos, water colors

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I LOVE hot and spicy food.  I saw a recipe for Fermented Hot Chili Sauce at Nourished Kitchen and thought it would make tasty gifts to share.

Holy crap–this is some hot, hot sauce!

I bought just about all the habanaro peppers at our grocery along with a few jalapenos and a couple of pablanos for flavor. I cut the stems off and threw them into the food processor with a few sweet onions, several cloves of garlic and a few handfuls of basil and salt and a little sugar. I mixed up the only living cultures I had-keifer starter-with a little water and threw that in too. I put everything into a mason jar–it took several tries as just inhaling the fumes were tough! I let it sit on my counter for about 12 days. There wasn’t much bubbling and not much liquid so I ended up just bottling it up seeds and all.

The brave decided to try it yesterday………….

I ate some on tortilla chips and yes it was hot but super tasty. I love the taste of habaneros!  I think it will be really good in a bowl of beans and rice topped with some yogurt! Mmmmm

The Nourished Kitchen blog is loaded with really delicious recipes!! Be sure to check them out.

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Post tags: basil, beans and rice, Chili, chili sauce, cloves of garlic, CULTURES, Fermented, Food, habanaro, habanaro peppers, habaneros, Hot, hot chili, hot peppers, hot sauce, Hotter, hotter than hell, jalapenos, Kitchen, mason jar, onion, onions, pepper, Peppers, recipe, SAUCE, spicy, spicy food, sweet onions, tasty gifts, Than Hell, Thursday, tortilla, tortilla chips, yogurt

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