(Belated) Martha Monday--Father's Day

Father's Day is just around the corner, and I found some super-cute ideas on MarthaStewart.com.  These handmade gifts would be perfect for new fathers, old fathers, grandfathers, uncles and general dad-type people. 


Remake Dad's favorite foods with fun labels:

 Give Dad a booklet of fun coupons:

If handmaking gifts is not your thing, this car care travel kit would be easy enough to assemble:

You can find more handmade gift ideas here, or go here for a fun Father's Day gift guide.  Have a great week!

Homemade applesauce

Apples don't last forever, and in my house store-bought apples lose their appeal after a few days. So why I continue to buy them in five pound bags is beyond me. But I abhor waste, so the weeks-old apples, by now all shrively and soft, have to be eaten.

But what to do with these apples that no one will eat so that everyone will want to eat them?

Homemade applesauce FTW. Aw yeah!

Making homemade applesauce is a breeze. So easy, in fact, that I didn't even use a recipe.  I just made it. Here are the steps:

1. Peel, core and dice apples. How many apples? That's up to you--it depends on how much applesauce you want.
2. Put the diced apples in a saucepan, cover with water and boil until soft.
3. When the apples are fork-tender, drain the water and dump the apples into a food processor.
4. Process those apples!
5. Add some cinnamon and sugar.  How much?  That's up to you!
6. Add some lemon juice. An amount somewhere between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. Or not.  It's totally up to you.
6. Process some more.

Once the apples are smooth, it's ready to eat! Or, if you prefer warm applesauce, return it to the saucepan and heat it up for a minute or two.

It's delicious!  And so much better than the stuff that comes in the little plastic cups.  I'm looking forward to batches and batches of homemade applesauce when our apple trees start producing, but until then, I'll satisfy the craving with all of the on-the-brink-apples already in my kitchen.

Which I continue to buy.  In five pound bags.  Sigh.

Cards and kids

I've been on a craft kick lately, and I'm trying to get my kids into the act.  Fortunately, they are happy to color, paint and draw, which makes for some fun art projects. 

We did some hand print cards for Valentine's Day:

The thumbs, fingers and sides of the palms are supposed to form the shape of a heart. We didn't quite get there, but that's okay because my kids had a lot of fun making these cards, and that's really all that matters.

Notice the entire roll of paper towels in the background. Just in case!

I like to buy plain white 5x7 cards/envelopes in 25- and 50-packs from JoAnn's and Michael's.  They make perfect canvasses for send-able artwork.

Here, Little Miss made a birthday card for the Big Guy:

I'd like to emphasize at this time that Crayola Washable markers are, in fact, truly washable.

The Little Guy used Crayola watercolors for his card for the Big Guy.  Also totally washable.

The kids really enjoy their craft projects, and I like being able to send their fun pictures to friends and family.  Plus, I'll never need to buy another birthday card again! 

Need a rainy day (or any day!) craft project for your kids? Pick up some plain white cards/envelopes at the craft store and let them do their thing!

Martha Monday--Thank ewe!

I made 'thank you' notes to match the birthday theme and invitations for Samantha's 'Down on the Farm' birthday party. 

The cute little lamb/sheep was made with a Martha Stewart Crafts Sheep punch.

And to kick up the Martha-Stewart-factor about ten notches, I used not regular paper, but a paint sample from the Martha Stewart paint line at Home Depot.  The color?  Lamb. 

On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most Martha-like and one being 'not Martha at all,' I'd rate these cards at a 23.  Eight points for being home made, ten points for the "Lamb" paint samples being used with an MS Crafts Sheep punch, and five points for the word play.  Not that there's a set point system for this, and even if there were, I'm really sure the only person keeping score is me.

Thank ewe, thank ewe very much!

Crafty invitations

Little Miss' birthday is rapidly approaching.  Our theme is "Down on the Farm," and I wanted the invitations to let folks know what they were in for with our parties. 

 
The inside contains the important party information about when and what time folks need to wander on down to the TMI homestead for some farm-fresh fun. The red doors are textured scrapbook paper that I found on clearance, and the white trim (and the inside) is basic card stock.  I printed the inside text two to a page, trimmed them, glued on the barn doors, and then adding the white trim accents. 

These invitations were cheap to make, but took a lot of time.  Thank goodness the Big Guy helped!  I firmly believe that my time is worth some serious cash (there's so little of it--it must be a hot commodity!) so if I had to do it again I would just purchase these printable invitations from Wants and Wishes.  Live and learn, right?!

Overall, I am really happy with how these turned out and I've gotten several compliments on them. And bonus:  making these invitations fulfilled my New Year's Resolutions to be more frugal and to craft more.  Hopefully the parties will turn out just as good as the invitations did!

A colorful Valentine's Day

Little Guy and Little Miss will be giving out these adorable crayon hearts for Valentine's Day:

Though it's been making the rounds on Pinterest, I first saw this idea in Family Fun a few years ago. Start by breaking up crayons. There's no need to buy new crayons for this project; I simply used all the crayon bits and pieces that my kids have broken over the past two years, as well as the crayons they get whenever we go to a restaurant. Between the crayon box, the diaper bag and the bottom of my purse, we had more than enough crayons to make 24 crayon hearts.  In fact, I could probably make 24 more!

Little Guy and Little Miss had a fun time filling the molds.  I broke each crayon into 3-4 pieces, and each heart-shaped cavity holds 6-8 pieces of crayon.  I always like craft projects that my kids can help with; not only is it fun for the family, but it also gives them a sense of ownership and pride in the finished product.

The baking molds went into a 230F oven for 10-15 minutes.  As you can see, some brand/type of crayons didn't melt well, but otherwise everything melted just fine. After the tins cooled, the crayons popped right out.

I decided to save a bit of time by using a pre-made cards for the crayons. I found this one, from The Long Thread, that prints out four to a page. Sweet!

Though it may look complicated, this Valentine's Day project is really easy to do and doesn't take a lot of time.  The hardest part might have been breaking the crayons!  Overall, this took less than an hour to do and it was a fun project for the kids.

And bonus: Little Guy's preschool friends will get a crayon, and not a sugary treat, for Valentine's Day.  That really makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Valentine's Day inspiration

Valentine's Day sneaks up on me every year and I'm not sure how it manages to do that, being as it comes with chocolates and flowers (two things that really grab my attention!). 

Maybe I don't notice right away because it's still winter, or maybe because Valentine's Day is on the heels of the Super Bowl (which is a really big deal in my house)? For whatever reason, I haven't done too much with Valentine's Day.  However, now that the Little Guy is in preschool and has to give Valentines to his friends, Valentine's Day has become a BIG DEAL in the TMI household. 

Being a Martha Stewart enthusiast, I want to make some homemade Valentines for my kids' classrooms rather than picking up a box of ready-made cards at the store.  It just makes sense to me that for a holiday revolving around love and friendship, tokens of such should be handmade.  Fortunately, I'm finding a lot of great Valentine ideas on Pinterest.

With all these great ideas, I'm set for classroom Valentines for Little Guy and Little Miss for the next 10 years or so.  I am constantly amazed by the wonderful crafts and fun ideas I've found on Pinterest.  Take a look at my Valentine's Day board, and you will be, too!

Puppet Masterpiece Theater

A year ago, Handy Freddy and Big Guy brought home a huge TV left on the street by a neighbor.  It didn't work very well, so it sat in our basement for quite some time.  My idea was to have Handy Freddy gut it and turn it into a puppet theater for the kids.

Fast forward to November: Little Guy was sick and laying on the couch and said to me, "Mom, do you know what would be cool? A television that I could climb inside and do puppet shows."

Jaw. Hit. The. Floor. "Wow, what a great idea! That would be really cool!"

Little Guy has actually been inside a huge television doing a puppet show before.  It was last November, when the Jim Henson exhibit came to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  The exhibit included a huge television that could fit a dozen or so kids, plenty of puppets, backgrounds and costumes, and small television monitors inside the larger stage television so the kids could see their production as the audience saw it.  It was an awesome exhibit and a fun experience. Little Guy talked about it for days.

Now, in all fairness, I might have mentioned the possibility of turning the broken television into a puppet theater once to the Little Guy over the summer.  I truly don't remember.  It could be that he remembered the Jim Henson exhibit and wanted to recreate the experience--after all, Little Guy is very into puppets and play acting.  I do know that I decided that this should be the big Santa gift sometime in the fall, and it certainly wasn't discussed with the kids past that. 

So whether Little Guy came up with the idea on his own, or remembered that I said something about it months ago, this gift is obviously going to be a hit.  He even asked the Blackberry Farm Santa for a "television he could climb inside and do a puppet show in."  Score!

Handy Freddy gutted the television last month, and I spray painted the inside over the past few weeks. It took several coats of white primer and a few coats of color to get it smooth and even.  MOM2 made cushions and curtains for the theater in coordinating fabrics.

The above picture shows the fabric, but the curtains aren't in yet. They'll be held up by a tension rod just inside the frame of the television. Everything will be fully assembled tonight. 

Little Guy has also been asking for elf and reindeer puppets.  Done and done!

The elf puppets are from the Fiesta Toy Company.  I looked all over for handmade elf puppets, but had no luck.  Luckily, I found some adorable reindeer puppets on Etsy.  These are from Val's Various Creations, and she did an amazing job with them.  Lovely Val even sent a nice note with the puppets, saying she hoped my kids enjoy them.  I am sure they will, Val!

Needless to say, I am so excited for this Christmas, maybe even more so than my kids!  Little Guy is going to get exactly what he asked for from Santa, and I am so happy that I can give it to him.  I realized this does leave Little Miss out a bit, though she loves playing with puppets just as much as Little Guy does.  Little Miss is still too young to understand everything, and since she is still mostly babbling she hasn't made any specific Christmas requests.  I hope that they both love this puppet theater, and maybe next year when Little Miss is speaking clearly I can make a wish come true for her as well.

And I owe a huge thanks to Handy Freddy and MOM2 for helping me make this very special request become a reality. Thank you! 

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays to all.  Whatever you celebrate, I hope all of your dreams and wishes come true.  Have a wonderful holiday!

Handmade at its best!

Little Guy gave me some handmade gifts he had created at preschool.  I am a sucker for this kind of thing and I immediately melted! Take a look:

He even made the gift wrap.  Love it.

It's a sled ornament!

Little Guy also made this penguin ornament, complete with his thumbprints for the penguin's feet.

Finally, there was one last gift that he put a lot of time and effort into...

It's a framed picture, and he decorated the frame. It had magnets on the back so it immediately went on the fridge.  Darling! 

After a ridiculous amount of 'oohing' and 'aahing' over his obvious artistic talents by this impressed Mommy, my Little Guy proudly hung his ornaments on the tree. 

I just love, love, love stuff like this.  These ornaments will be on my Christmas tree for as long as I have one, and after that I demand to be buried with them.  Sniffle.

Thanks so much to my son's preschool teacher, and to all teachers, who help their students make gifts for their parents for Christmas and other special holidays and occasions.  This truly made my day. 

Martha Monday--Wonderfully handmade

Right now, all of my homemade gifts are of the baked variety...cookies, cookies and more cookies. Next Christmas, I hope to branch out and give handmade gifts that don't have to spend time in the oven before they are given.

But if you're looking to give handmade this year, Martha has some amazing ideas.  Check out her 82 ideas for handmade gifts for the women in your life; 33 ideas for homemade gifts for the men in your life;  and 34 ideas for kids' handmade gifts.

I'm really liking this No-Sew Tote Bag:

And homemade Body Scrub looks easy to make, while still being a luxurious gift:

If "Project Sony" goes well, then maybe I'll try my hand at some other homemade gifts for my kids next year.  This Animal Trunk is awesome:

I'm also a fan of these Monster Mittens (which can also be made to look like lions and sharks!):

Making handmade gifts accomplishes so many things: there's a real sense of accomplishment in making a gift that's good enough to give, it saves money and it truly shows the recipient how much you care.  Baking is how I do that now, but my inner-Martha is crying out for me to do more. 

For more handmade gift ideas from Martha Stewart, click here.  Happy gifting!

Homemade pasta sauce

After weeks of anticipation, I finally had enough Roma tomatoes (plus a few others) ripe at the same time to make pasta sauce.  If you've never made your own sauce before, then I strongly encourage you to give it a try.  The sauce is sweeter and richer than anything from a jar.  I used only three ingredients with this sauce...it's amazing how little can do so much!

Here's how you do it:

1. Pick and wash a bunch of tomatoes.  You'll need 30 or so Roma tomatoes to make enough sauce for one box of noodles.

2. Boil a large pot of water.

3. Prepare an ice bath in a large bowl.

4. Cut a small "X" in the bottom of each tomato.  No need to make the cut too deep--it just has to pierce the skin.

5. Carefully drop the tomatoes into the pot of boiling water. As they heat up, the skin will begin to pull away from the tomato where you made the X cut.

6. When you see the skins start to peel back, carefully take the tomatoes out of the boiling water and place them in the ice bath. This will cause the skins to almost completely separate from the tomato for easy removal.

7. Once the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, remove the stem core and the skins.  Save those for your awesome compost bin.

The above steps are an ongoing process: put some tomatoes in the boiling water, remove them, put more in, work on the tomatoes in the ice bath, repeat.  This goes on until you have a nice pile of peeled tomatoes.

8. Heat up some olive oil in a large pot.

9. Add the peeled/cored tomatoes to the olive oil. Crush them a bit to release the juice and let them warm up. 

10. After the tomatoes have cooked down a bit, start running them through a food mill. 

The food mill crushes the tomatoes and separates the 'meat' from any leftover skins and seeds. Some seeds might make it through, but that's okay.

Be sure to scrape off the bottom of the mill--you don't want to miss all the great stuff hanging there.

At this point, what you are left with doesn't look too promising.  Don't be discouraged!  Tomatoes are 95% water, and this needs to simmer down in order to thicken up. 

11. Return the red glop to the pot, and simmer it for 2-3 hours.  I added some fresh basil at this point, but naturally forgot to take pictures. My bad.   Simmer the sauce down and once it thickens up, it's ready to add to the pasta.  Delicious!

Because I am not completely Martha-fied, I used boxed Barilla noodles.  One day I'll learn to make my own pasta noodles, I swear!  This batch of sauce was just right for one regular box of fettuccine noodles.

To liven up your sauce, feel free to add onions, garlic, oregano and more at the simmer step.  After your sauce is done, you can eat it immediately, save it in the fridge for a few days, freeze it or can it for enjoyment months down the road. 

I'll be making some more sauce in my immediate future, as another round of Roma tomatoes are ripening.  Happy saucing!