New and Improved ladybeekeeper

Posted on July 15, 2024 by lexicolton

I’m still not keeping bees but Will has given my ladybeekeeper blog a re-vamp. He made several changes that should allow pictures to load faster, and hopefully the site will have less downtime. Most importantly though it is accessible via https. Hopefully you won’t notice any differences on your end, but if you do please let me know (for better or worse)!

Since I’m just testing out the new wordpress version I’ll keep this one short. I want to show you some of the silly puppets I made and the puppet show I put together (thanks Amy for recording it). I really deliberated with what to do for the puppet show. Since Native Americans are such wonderful stewards of the Earth from which we can learn so much, I wanted to share an Earth related tale from one of America’s native peoples. I ended up taking out a a storybook from the library called Keepers of the Earth which was a collection of many different Earth related stories from different Nations and some ways you could tie these stories to a science curriculum. Julius and I read thru the entire book and really enjoyed the stories and teachings. His favorite was a tale from the Abenaki peoples called “Gluscabi and the Wind Eagle”. Gluscabi is a bit of a trickster and his antics cracked Julius up. The tale contains just three characters; Gluscabi, Grandmother Woodchuck, and Wuchowsen the Wind Eagle. I thought it would be perfect for a puppet show so I made some puppets and performed it (I will be honest, there was a lot more stressing out than this including worrying about the socks I was using and searching extensively for how to sing the canoe song in the story, which was thankfully documented by a folk singer). The kids seemed to like it and I really hope that I did the story some small measure of justice even though I’m sure it cannot compare to any version told by the Abenaki. If you want to see my humble interpretation Amy recorded it! Thanks Amy!

I also thought you’d like to see the close up of Gluscabi (a silly looking sock fellow, with removable vest and hair held on by velcro), Grandmother Woodchuck (who I decided to paint brown since I only had white socks) and Wuchowsen my interpretation of a wind Eagle.

Gluscabi
Wuchowsen, the Wind Eagle
Grandmother Woodchuck
Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

I think I can… I think I can

Posted on July 8, 2024 by lexicolton

Well this past week was a double birthday celebration.  We celebrated with some yummy dinners and way too many sweets.  (Seriously, I am done with sweets, I always feel so bad afterwards both mentally and physically.  Well after this cupcake tutorial maybe.)  Thank goodness it was a short week after our vacation because it was a struggle to get back to the real world.  We didn’t buy the internet package on the boat because it was so expensive, and all I can say is that I loved the forced disconnect.  I think I’m going to start a “vacation” program where I just turn off somebody’s internet for them.  (It’s hard to pull that plug yourself.)  What a relief to not have the temptation of internet garbage.  Not only that but being out of contact with the rest of the world was also somehow relaxing and liberating.  (Plus the onboard spa pampering helped.)  Seriously though, it felt like the first time I have been able to disconnect in ages.  It was amazing.

Oh and I witnessed this while Julius and Patricia were playing quietly in the hotel room before we said we would get up on the day of the cruise:

Julius: I’m so excited today.

Patricia:  Me too, but why?

Julius:  We’re going on the cruise today.

Patricia: TO DAY?!

Now that we’re back to the real world, Julius has been doing summer camps and Patricia is back at her daycare (with summer water play!)  They both have been having a great time.  I can’t believe how quickly they are growing.  We’ve been desperately trying to improve their eating manners (usually they start with their food on the plate and the food ends up on the napkin, then on the table.  They use any surface in front of them as an eating area.  And don’t get me started with utensils.  Remember how Julius was so excited and proud of himself for using utensils as a baby?  Well he gave up on all that and prefers to only eat with his hands.  Where did I go wrong?  The only thing helping right now is our reminder that “the princesses” (the ones who live in Disney World) will be disappointed if their manners are not up to par.  Patricia has started remarking when they (or others) are not meeting the Princesses standards.

Well these cupcakes may not be princess material but they sure are cute.  I found these adorable locomotive cupcakes on pinterest.  They don’t tell what brands they used to make them, but I would know those dipped wafer rolls anywhere!  My grandma always used to have them on hand.  Unfortunately for me, they are German (just like my grandma) and very difficult to find in the US.  For those who plan ahead, they are called Bahlsen Waffeletten and they are delicious!  I went to the usual stores with imported items, but no luck, I couldn’t find them anywhere and I didn’t have time to special order them.  So instead I went to my backup plan.  I made the trains a bit smaller and used Pirouline wafers for the engine.  This meant I had to cut down the vanilla wafer cookies as well.  I don’t know a single child (and not many adults under 89) who like black licorice candies so I also sized down the wheels a bit and used mini york peppermint patties and mini brown m&ms instead.

Cupcake Train

What you’ll need:

  • Cupcakes (mine were these super easy and delicious chocolate ones)
  • buttercream frosting (I’ve been using this one!)
  • Pirouline rolled wafer sticks
  • vanilla wafer cookies (like these)
  • m&ms minis
  • mini York Peppermint Patties
  • chocolate pocky
  • Green food coloring
  1. Divide out about 2/3 of the frosting and dye it green.
  2. Using 234 piping tip, pipe “grass” blades all over the top of the cupcakes
  3. Using white frosting and a moderately sized line tip, pipe a line of train tracks (or you can dye the rest brown, but I didn’t have brown food coloring)

For each locomotive:

  1. Cut a vanilla wafer lengthwise so it is only slightly wider than a Pirouline.
  2. Cut the wafer down to about 1.5″ long.  Cut a Pirouline down to match.
  3. Cut the chocolate part of the pocky stick so it it 1/2″ long.
  4. Finally cut a square of vanilla wafer for the top of the engine.
  5. Set aside 5 brown m&m minis and 2 mini york peppermint patties.
  6. Assemble the train.  Use the cut down vanilla wafer as the base, then draw a line of frosting on top.  Place the pirouline on top of this.

    Not the width of the wafers has been cut down, as has the length and small squares have been made to match the new width.  Here I am adding the pirouline on top of the base wafer with frosting.

  7. Place a blob of frosting on one side of the square vanilla wafer, then place on top of the Pirouline on one side for the cabin.

    Here I’ve placed the square cabin top of the locomotive and in one the smokestack.

  8. On the opposite side, place a little dab of frosting on top of the Pirouline.  Place the cut pocky stick into this dab of frosting to stand upright for a chimney.
  9. Place a bit of frosting on the back of a brown m&m mini and gently press it onto the pocky stick chimney.
  10. Place a bit of frosting on the back of a mini York peppermint patty.  Press it onto the bottom wafer on the side with the cabin.
  11. Place a bit of frosting on the back of 2 more brown m&m minis and stick them to the bottom vanilla wafer base in front of the mini York Peppermint patty as wheels.
  12. Repeat steps 10 and 11 on the other side of the train. Let dry.

    Check out the finished locomotives in the right of this picture.

  13. When dry, press onto a cupcake on top of the train tracks.

To make the train cars

  1. Cut down 2 wafers lengthwise like you did for the locomotive.
  2. Cut the 2 wafers into two pieces 1/3 of the way down the wafer.
  3. Set aside 4 brown m&m minis for wheels.
  4. Assemble the car by putting some frosting on either end of the 1/3 pieces of wafer. Lay one of the long wafers down then press a shorter wafer at each end. Place another long wafer on top.  Lay flat it should look like a basket.

    Assembled coal cars plus one with partial wheels.

  5. Put some frosting on the back of the m&m minis and affix two to the bottom of a long wafer on either end.  Repeat for second side.  Let dry.
  6. When dry, place on top of the railroad track on a cupcake then fill with m&m minis.

    In the back of the photo are the cars filled with m&ms the one in the foreground has the layer of icing to allow the m&ms to overflow slightly.

  7. Put a small amount of white frosting just outside the hole for the m&ms.  Scatter more m&ms on top.

    Up close of the finished locomotives and train cars.

 

Posted in Culinary Delights | Leave a comment

Mermaid Tales

Posted on July 2, 2024 by lexicolton

Note I wrote this before the cruise but forgot to autopost it!

We are going on a cruise!!  The last one we went on was to Alaska about 8 years ago!  That one was super fun but it was pre kids.  So we’ll let everyone know how it works with kids.  Hopefully it’s great!

The last couple weeks at work have been pretty dark.  They offered my entire organization voluntary severance.  And I just found out a couple of friends took it.  I did not.  I still maintain this is the best team I’ve been on in my career and I am just not ready to let that go.  They are threatening to make us return to the office 3 days a week but as one coworker said “they can’t put the genie back in that bottle”.  I don’t know why executives care.  It just seems like a power play especially when they deliver these remarks from their own home offices.

But enough work for the next week it’s all about fun!  I won’t even be able to work even if I wanted to (I don’t) because we decided not to pay for wifi on the ship (it is really expensive).  So I’m off grid (mostly)!  Well I thought I’d show you how I made Patricia’s mermaid cupcakes since we’re about to embark on our own sea voyage.  Oh wait before that… Patricia had her last day of preschool Friday!!  Here’s her first and last day pictures!

My big girl! Done with preschool! On to PreK (1)

Mermaid Cupcakes

What you’ll need:

  • Mermaid tail candy mold
  • Candy melts (mine were pink and teal)
  • Edible luster dust
  • American buttercream recipe
  • Food coloring
  • Cute sprinkles
  • Cupcakes (I used this recipe, though it is not my favorite) and I dyed the batter orange, pink and purple then put a spoonful of each color batter into the muffin cup so they looked sort of tie dyed.
  1. Melt your chocolate/candy melts according to package directions.
  2. Place silicone mold on a baking sheet.
  3. Spoon melted chocolate into the mermaid tail molds.  Use a toothpick to make sure the chocolate reaches into all the crevices and then shake the mold a bit.  Using an offset spatula remove the excess chocolate from the top of the mold.
  4. Let cool then add another thick layer of chocolate where the tail and fins meet.  Let cool.
  5. When mermaid fins are cool and hard gently remove them from the molds. It is really hard to do this without breaking them (even with our extra precaution) so don’t worry if they split between the tail and fins.
  6. If they split, dip the tip of tails into a teensy bit of melted chocolate (or use a toothpick to place a tiny bit of chocolate on the broken part) then place the fin on top gluing it back together.
  7. When tails are whole and dry dust with lustre dust.
  8. After making sure your cupcakes are sufficiently cool, make your buttercream, split it in half then dye one half pink and teal.
  9. Insert a large frosting tip (2D) into piping bag then fill with teal frosting.
  10. Starting at the center pipe a disc of frosting in teal.
  11. Sprinkle sprinkles lightly over the outside area of the teal buttercream.
  12. Repeat 10&11 for all cupcakes.

    I’m between steps here!

  13. Clean and replace frosting tip (2D) in a new piping bag.  Fill with pink frosting.
  14. Pipe a single star in the center of each cupcake on top of the teal frosting.
  15. Place a mermaid tail into the top of the star to look like a mermaid is diving into the water.
  16. Finally before presenting I placed a second cupcake wrapper on the outside of the first so it looked prettier.

    Patricia is showing off the inner wrapper and the tie dye cupcake

Posted in Culinary Delights | 2 Comments

Sharktastic

Posted on June 17, 2024 by lexicolton

Well Julius is officially done with Kindergarten!  I will admit I cried when I was taking things out of his backpack.  How is the year already over?  It’s gone by too quickly!  I feel the need to do one of the before and after photos that everyone does with the chalkboard I made this summer!

First and last day of Kindergarten

Julius’ summer camps don’t start yet so he’s home this week doing Legos and vegging out.  Hopefully tomorrow he’ll be cleaning his room.  He also had his dance recital this weekend!  It was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen (well tied with watching Patricia do gymnastics).  I’m sad he’s not interested for next year because that 30 seconds of performance was totally worth it (I’m not being sarcastic it was so darn adorable).

Speaking of darn adorable, I can’t believe I haven’t posted Julius’ shark costume tutorial.  This is basically a shark snuggie.  It’s a bit hard to see in while walking, but that didn’t stop Julius from wearing it as a Halloween costume.  Fun fact, this is the picture we originally took for our Christmas cards, but our photographer told us it looked like we were missing a person from the photo!  This pattern is a bit looser than some of the others I’ve done because I used Julius as a pattern.   Use my photos as a guide, and let me know if you have questions.

Shark Snuggie

What you’ll need:

  • about 2.5 yards of blue fleece material
  • about 1.5 yards of white fleece material (I used just white sweatshirt material I had)
  • about 1/4 yard or scrap of off white fleece material
  • Scrap black and white felt fabric
  1. Using your child(or an adult) as a model, cut two pieces of blue fleece in the shape of a shark (seen from the side) complete with fins with the arms fall, tail where the feet are and a hood at the top.  Cut a large dorsal fin (x2) and smaller secondary dorsal fin (x2) proportional to the rest of the shark from blue fleece.   Make everything quite a bit larger than your child to account for comfyness and seam allowance.
  2. Serge or stitch 2 large dorsal fin pieces together, leaving a gap at the bottom.  Repeat for smaller dorsal fin. 
  3. Turn dorsal fins right side out and place them inside the shark body with the unfinished edges along the back seam. Stitch from hood to bottom. 
  4. Open the back piece up and cut front tail piece in 1 solid piece.  Cut pieces for front of arms in blue fleece to where the arms stop protruding from the body.
  5. Cut white belly from where the bottom tail piece comes up to the base of the hood.  Cut a halfmoon piece for the top of the hood from white for the upper mouth.

    Sketched on where the belly should be and the mouth (the white parts. The fins and tail should all attach here.

  6. Serge/stitch the tail to the belly and the arms to the belly.

    Where tail attaches to belly.

  7. Serge/stitch the upper mouth to the hood.

    Inside view of where mouth attaches to hood.

  8. Stitch a row of shark teeth the width of the hood by stitching a triangle pattern in the off white fleece. 
  9. Turn teeth right side out.  Serge/stitch teeth white mouth on the hood, then serge rest of teeth onto the bottom of mouth (the white belly).

    Stitch teeth onto mouth.

    Stitching onto belly.

  10. Stitch a an elastic loop on the top mouth center behind the teeth. 
  11. Stitch a button on the back of the middle center tooth. 
  12. Finally cut out two black circles from felt.  Cut two smaller circles from white felt.  Stitch white circles to black eyes.
  13. Stitch eyes on either side of the hood. 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

In Bloom

Posted on June 11, 2024 by lexicolton

Will for Mother’s Day has been updating my blog so I can switch to https and Google will start indexing my blog again (maybe).  Yay!  He’s almost done so we’ll have a grand unveiling (maybe).  Spoilers, it will look exactly the same, it’s just backend changes.

This is Julius’ last week of Kindergarten.  I can’t even believe it.  It’s funny, I started to think of Julius as such a big guy compared to Patricia, but seeing other young kids through his classes, cub scouts and other activities it’s clear he is just a little guy.  He is little with a big personality though!  (Just like Patricia.)  His latest is trying to learn music.  He desperately wants to play an instrument so we bought him a harmonica and he was getting pretty good at the tabs!  Until he lost it.  This weekend at the library he realized there were instruments you could take out from the library.  So he borrowed a ukulele from the library.  Luckily my BFFITWWW Amy came over with Chris and the kiddos this weekend and tuned it for him.  She is the opposite of music clueless like myself (as proof she has a conservatory in her house with tons of different instruments).  Being musically talented she also taught him a few chords on the ukulele, which he has somehow remembered!  I’m actually pretty impressed.

Friends and cookies!

Patricia is such a cheeky lady.  She really doesn’t like to be told she’s doing something wrong, and will break down crying.  When I think I’ve really ruined her day though she seconds later will bounce back as her happy bubbly self.  She always wants to help (maybe this is a phase with children, because Julius used to be a big helper and he’s less interested now).  This weekend we went to Ikea and she helped Will lift the boxes onto the cart proclaiming, “I’m a big strong lady”.  Best affirmation I’ve ever heard, I’m going to start using that one.

This weekend was also Julius and Patricia’s “Gymnastics Extravaganza”.  It was super cute – each kid did a demonstration of their gymnastics skills and then got a medal and ice cream.  They had little beach pail sets you could get as a congratulations prize but they looked like things that would be thrown away so instead I decided to make them cookie bouquets.  They weren’t super hard and they came out really, really cute!  I made them the night before the performance, let them dry overnight and then packaged them in the morning.  Both kids loved them which made me incredibly happy!  (Sometimes it’s hit or miss what the kids are going to like or not.)  There are tons of cookie bouquets on pinterest and these are the ones I used as an example!

Cookie Bouquets

What You’ll Need (for 2 small bouquets):

  • 1/4 batch of my favorite sugar cookie recipe.
  • kabob skewers (with the ends trimmed)
  • biscuit cutters
  • 1 batch stiff royal icing (I use the one on the back of the Wilton meringue powder  as is)
  • piping bag and 104 tip
  • pink food coloring
  • white non pareil sprinkles
  • brown kraft paper (upcycled is best – mine was saved from an amazon package)
  • white tissue paper (upcycled is best – mine was from Julius’ dance costumes)
  • Dried babys breath (optional – but I have a lot of this drying in my basement from the party)
  • Upcycled ribbon
  1. Roll out your sugar cookies to 3/8″ thick (this is a bit thicker than I usually make) then cut with a 2.5″ biscuit cutter.
  2. Press a kabob skewer down flat into the back of the cookie dough circle.
  3. Take a piece of dough and press over the skewer to enclose it.
  4. Flip over and gently press so it’s flat, place on prepared cookie tray.
  5. Repeat for other cookies (I made 9, but 1/4 of a recipe could have make around 14 or 15).
  6. Bake for 6-8 minutes (7 in my oven) until barely golden on top.
  7. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
  8. As cookies are cooling, prepare frosting.  I divided the batch in half and made two different shades of pink (one barely pink).  Place frosting into frosting bag fitted with 104 rose piping tip.
  9. The other tutorial doesn’t describe how to make the petals other than by holding the fat part of the tip down.  I have never piped this kind of petal with a 104 tip, only rose petals, which you do vertically, so this was a bit challenging.  I made a video, but I was doing it myself so I’m not sure you can tell what I was doing so I’ll try to describe it.  The good news is even the ones “I screwed up” still look great.  So just do your best.
    1. Hold the cookie in one hand and the piping tip in the other
    2. With the fat part of the piping tip facing “down” pipe a ‘c’ shape, turning the cookie to facilitate this.
    3. Continue to pipe c-shaped petals around the edge of the cookie.
    4. Move just inside the other petals, but overlapping (ideally overlapping where two petals meet).  Pipe more petals in a ring.
    5. Repeat until you get to the center of the flower where the petals are all overlapping (for my size cookie that was the third ring).
    6. Place a pinch of non pareils in the center.
  10. Repeat step 9 for the other cookies then let dry overnight.
  11. To wrap, first make sure your upcycled paper is nice and flat.  I always iron my recycled paper on cotton setting (just don’t hold the iron in one place).  It works great to get out crinkles or folds.
  12. Place 3 cookies in a rough bouquet shape on your paper.
  13.  Cut the recycled paper into rectangles that are a couple inches wider than the bouquet, and a few inches taller than the bouquet.
  14. Fold tissue paper to fit roughly on top of this rectangle.
  15. Place down brown paper followed by white tissue paper, followed by bouquet.  Tuck a few sprigs of baby’s breath behind the edible flowers if desired.
  16. Carefully scrunch the brown paper and tissue paper over the bouquet stems.  Tie a ribbon around the stems to hold in place.
  17. Deliver to your favorite star!

    Julius Gymnastics Star

    Patricia gymnastics star (pleased as punch)

    Patricia enjoying her cookie with Meemah and Meepah

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

I’ve a Fondness for Tea

Posted on June 3, 2024 by lexicolton

Today we picked up a “new” suitcase for Patricia from the free site.  Have I told you how much I love the free site?  The idea is to give things you don’t need to people local to you who may need them and in return take those things others don’t need anymore.  This saves things from going in the landfill and giving items away to people in your town cuts down on gas and emissions.  This weekend I gave away a bunch of stuff I didn’t want/need (old questionable grass seed, chicken wire, an old kiddie pool, a non-induction pot) and then today ended up with a slightly used pink and rainbow flowered rolling suitcase for Patricia.  Patricia was delighted.  And she did not care in the slightest that it had a little tear on a pocket because “mommy can fix it”.  When we got home she immediately filled it full of stuff “for Florida” including about 27 recipe cards, a pixel art kit, a bunch of books, and, my favorite, a real can of lentil soup that she took off my shelf – for a snack perhaps?!

I love when Julius and Patricia play together.  It is probably my favorite thing ever.  Tonight they kept whispering to each other and while I was putting Julius to bed Patricia came in and Julius said to her “don’t forget the plan”.  When I asked them “what plan”?  They said, they couldn’t tell me and that it was a secret plan.  Later Will found Patricia sleeping on Julius’ bottom bunk and we decided this had been “the plan”.  Sneaky.  But,  let’s be honest, also adorable.

The kids put up with an awful lot of silliness having me as a mom.  Well silliness and sometimes sheer frustration.  Patricia pushes everyone’s buttons (especially mine) but most of the time she is just a cheerful ball of energy.  So despite some contrary nature the kids most of the time go along with my harebrained schemes.  We have tea parties more than anyone else I know (which is only like once or twice a year but still).  I inherited my grandma’s tea cup collection which I always adored.  After Sunday dinner we’d each get to pick a tea cup and try some tea from her collection.  This is definitely where my fondness for tea comes from, though my fondness for Earl Grey, my favorite of her tea collection,  was not one shared by my grandma, who one time remarked in awe, “we never thought anyone would like that one!”  I also always drink my tea black which seemed to baffle her.

My absolute favorite tea I developed a liking for in college.  Everytime we’d have a formal dinner in the Statler hotel for some such event, recruiting, Eid, SWE etc they would bring out what my sophomore roommates and I deemed “the fancy tea”, which is the Harney and Sons sachet collection.  My favorite of which is Paris, a delicious black tea with hints of vanilla and bergamot.  Like an upgraded, more subtle Earl Grey.  Just the smell has me drifting off to my happy place.  Perhaps needless to say I buy it and their decaf Paris version in loose leaf by the pound.  If you ever want to try it just stop by and ask me for a cup.

Sorry I’ve once again digressed.  You see?  Tea just makes me wax poetic.  It used to be wine but honestly, after 4 years of pregnancy/nursing I’ve become a bit of a teatotaler (see what I did there).  Anyway, the kids, when home sick from school or on the weekends always beg me to make them tea (I keep many tisanes on hand for this reason).  They almost never drink it.  So last time when we were running late, I negotiated to do a tea party the following weekend instead.  They were all for it.  So I went all out.  I made homemade sourdough honey wheat bread (note: the bread was delicious but didn’t rise tremendously), and two tiny batches of desserts for the 4 of us and we had tea in place of lunch on Memorial Day.  The kids picked out their own teacups and saucers from my grandma’s collection. Oh and one final note – if you have never had homemade crumpets with jam and butter you don’t know what you’re missing!

Afternoon Tea

Menu

Tea party ready to commence.

Now the same picture with me!

Top to bottom:
financiers & cupcakes; crumpets; egg salad hearts and cucumber sandwiches

I should have taken a picture before I dived in!

Julius’ favorite was the egg salad.

Will’s digging in.

Posted in Culinary Delights, Parties | Leave a comment

Gone a-Maying

Posted on May 29, 2024 by lexicolton

So obviously I have to talk about the elephant in the room.. err… pole in the yard.  Will erected a maypole for me a few weeks ago.  If there is a greater token of love, I would be surprised.  After he put up the maypole I quickly whipped up the topper with some ribbon.  Then, naturally, we tested it out by doing some folk dancing around it.  It was challenging!  I would have danced for longer but everyone could only bear humoring me for so long and I think it isn’t the same solo…

Maiden voyage of the maypole

Wrapping is looking good!

At the party we got a dozen people to do it.  Afterwards, at least one person said “it’s more fun than I expected” so I consider that high praise.  Next year many folks suggested I send out the dance moves in advance to make sure everyone knows the moves.  I didn’t want to give people homework… but if that’s what people want… I will gladly oblige.  We had a bit of trouble with the full weave so there is improvement for next year to be had!  It still looked pretty wrapping around the pole.  I want to say that I did ask Will if this was the most pagan thing I’ve ever asked convinced him to do and he thought for a really long time before saying “maybe”.  So that is promising.

I used this tutorial as the inspiration for our maypole, but I did things slightly differently.  They had some great ideas including using galvanized steel pipe for the pole.  Personally, I didn’t think we should fell any trees for our maypole, and galvanized steel means we can keep it year after year.  What I didn’t like about the tutorial is that they used a single stake of rebar driven into the ground to hold up the 10′ pipe.  That didn’t seem like that would handle 20 people dancing around it.  So we changed that a bit!  Unfortunately it involves some digging.

In order to accommodate digging and still have a 10′ maypole, I attached a 3′ length of pipe to the bottom of a 10′ pipe with a coupling.  To the bottom of the 3′ pipe I attached a threaded floor flange fitting, to make it more difficult for the pipe to just pull out of the ground.  Using a post hole digger, Will dug 3′ into the ground, then buried the pole, 3′ length side into the ground.  Then we filled the hole back in (while also checking it was level) and Will tamped down the earth until we were satisfied it was buried.  I also left the cap on the top of the 10′ pole so water wouldn’t get inside when it rained.

Will tamping down the earth.

Then I made the topper with 1.5″ ribbons –  (made from recycled plastic and happily sourced from this Indigenous run shop) and two 8″ pine plaques from Michaels.  We (the kids helped me) measured out 20 15′ lengths of ribbon and then I used the staple gun to attach them to the back of one of the plaques.  I then sandwiched the ribbons with the second plaque and screwed them together.  Finally, I attached the threaded floor flange fitting to the plaque.  This allowed me to remove the ribbons when they were not in use so they didn’t get wet.

Stapling the ribbons on

Putting the second plaque on top to “sandwich the ribbons”

Attaching the floor flange.

For those who are wondering, the pole is still in the ground.  We are debating how long it might stay there.  If you want to see us in action… watch below!  (What good friends I have!)

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

Sustainable Pinata

Posted on May 21, 2024 by lexicolton

Well last week was a teensy bit of a bummer!  Patricia got sent home from school for pink eye!  And then Julius got sent home for a mild fever.  Both kids were out for several days.  We let them watch way too much tv while they were home which I fear might be a bit of a reward because Julius claimed he was sick a day longer than we intended to keep him home.  I want to believe my child if they say they are sick, but he didn’t have a fever or any symptoms so how am I to know if he is really sick?  He stayed home all day chipper as ever asking us to play with him.  Today we again got a call from his after school program that he was not feeling well.  He had claimed both his ears hurt and his stomach hurt so we took him to urgent care.  They didn’t find anything wrong with him.

Julius has been really into musical instruments lately.  He asked for a harmonica and has been begging me to print him out harmonica tabs.  I think I need to sign him up for a music class, but his schedule is already so busy.  He wants to do all these activities, but there is only so much time in the day!  And Patricia still just adores her big brother.  She always wants to give him a hug and a kiss before bed (much to Julius’ chagrin).  And she always wants to play with him.  Today her “question of the day” was “how are you feeling today” and she answered “peaceful because my brother plays with me”.  That’s her happy place.

We went to see “Bluey’s Big Play” this weekend which was adorable (as all things Bluey are) and one of the themes was being a big sibling.  I hope it gave Julius some food for thought.  I definitely remember having a similar conversation with my mom at Julius’s age about my sister copying me and my mom explaining that it was because she looked up to me.  It was eye opening.  Now I look up to her, so hopefully she doesn’t get too annoyed when I copy her ;).  Patricia does of course do her own things too.  For instance I caught her gluing giant googly eyes to this rock the other day.

Gosh so many things to talk about from Earth Day!  I guess I’ll describe how I made the Earth piñata this week.  In the past I’ve made piñatas entirely out of paper mache.  Paper mache is so satisfying.  It’s just recycled paper, flour and water.  This time I didn’t even bother to simmer the flour and water.  I just mixed a 2 parts flour to one part water.  I briefly considered using sourdough discard but wasn’t sure if that was taboo.  Ha!  Usually I use a balloon but I didn’t want to throw away a balloon just for a piñata so I tried another tactic. This one was made of recycled pizza boxes and constructed with the paper mache as glue.  This was the perfect amount of durability as everyone got in a couple of good whacks before it busted opened.  (We went youngest to oldest, and we went thru the order twice.)  I was horrified that someone was going to get whacked so I had everyone stand WAY back while the kids were swinging.  Even so you can see my horrified face in the photos below.

Oh one last thing!  I wanted to make the filling for the piñata sustainable so I went to a penny candy store with my stasher bags and bought bulk hard candies and bulk foil wrapped candy (foil is recyclable!)  We put a tablespoon of each of the hard candies into little paper envelopes.  I also bought these cool completely plastic free tattoos from a company called Nuukk.  They work really well!  I think the kids enjoyed the treats. 

Paper Mache Earth Pinata

What you’ll need:

  • 2 Pizza boxes
  • old newspaper or ads
  • flour
  • a canary cutter (this is the best thing ever, I’ll wax poetic about it in a later post)
  • recycled crepe paper streamers in green and blue (I saved mine from the under the sea party.  Yes for 6 months. I know, I’m crazy.)
  • a glue stick
  1. Cut first pizza boxes into two circles
  2. Cut a 6″ wide strip from the other pizza boxes, then fold up the sides to form a 2″ wide strip with two 2″ wide strips on either end.
  3. Cut the 2″ wide strips into tabs 1″ wide, then bend at each tab.  These will be used to form the curved portion of the earth connecting the two circles.
  4. Whisk together two parts flour to one part water to form a paste.
  5. Rip strips of newspaper into roughly 1″x5″ strips.
  6. Dip a strip of newspaper into paste and lightly remove some of the paste so the mixture only just coats the paper.  Start layering this on top of one side of the piñata where the face of the earth connects to the curved portion.  
  7. Keep layering until a segment is covered, then cover with dry newspaper.  Let dry.
  8. Repeat with the rest of the side of the box until a 6″ length of the curve is left.

    Flap left opened.

  9. Repeat steps 6 thru 8 with the other side of the box.  Let dry.
  10. After it completely dries determine if you need another set of paper mache to keep things together.  The 6″ strip you left opened will be where you fill the piñata.
  11. After the pinata is dry, start adding your strips of crepe paper.  Fold strips of crepe paper and cut 1/4″ cuts halfway into the paper.  
  12. Start layering at the bottom by applying a stripe of glue stick, and then applying the non-fringed portion of the crepe paper to the glue.  Make row continue around sides and bottom of the piñata.  
  13. Stack the next row about the first continuing up the piñata.  Intersperse the green and blue in strategic spots to form the continents.
  14. Continue stacking until you fill out the entire pinata including the portion at the top.  Tuck the top portion in after filling it with candy and glue in place. 

Finished Piñata

Watch my face.

Pure shock.

PS – I realize this Earth representation is flat.  The Earth is not flat.  I just wanted to use all recycled materials to make this Earth Day piñata Earth friendly.

PPS – I have already been told my continents leave something to be desired.  I tried really hard, but a. I was a bit loose with geography and b. it is really hard to make continents out of rectangular strips!

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Parties | Leave a comment

A Recipe for Disaster… or how (not) to throw an Earth Day Celebration

Posted on May 13, 2024 by lexicolton

Well thanks for your patience!  The party ended up getting rained out two weekends ago, but on the rain date this past Saturday the weather was gorgeous!!  This meant of course that I procrastinated finishing party prep until last week.  I was a bit ambitious with Earth Day party crafts this year, and I think there were simultaneously more activities that were hits, but also some that were not even touched at all.  Before I get into the activities let me tell you about the drama.

It wouldn’t be a recipe for disaster without some drama.  This year I decided to make the main course gluten free and vegan. (You see last year I failed to know one of our guests was gluten free, in my defense I had never met them before and Will had anecdotally told me they were gluten free before I had even conceived of having a party.  And no one responded to my “tell me if you have food allergies or intolerance”.  In a here’s-what-not-to-do moment, I did tell the person to their face it was such a relief that none of the friends that were gluten free were here because I’m always so nervous cooking gluten free.  Ouch.)  So anyway this year I painstakingly spent 6 hours making 5 GALLONS of gluten free, vegan chili.  It took me 1.5 hours of veggie chopping alone.  Then 1 hour of cooling it before it was cool enough to put in the fridge.

If I look tall it is because I am standing on a 2 foot step stool to stir the chili.

When I woke up the next morning (the day of the party) the garage fridge (where the chili was stored in batches) was at 57 F.  I had a near melt down.  I decided that we could save the party by getting some kind of vegan soup from the store so I ran off to the nearest grocery store.  For some reason completely unknown to me, the entire vegetarian soup section in the store had only 5 cans in it. I broke down sobbing. Luckily my BFITWWW Amy and Will saved the day by finding me MANY cans of Annie’s vegetarian lentil soup (which is actually super delicious).  We heated these in several crock pots and moved on with the party.  Julius was very sweet and told me multiple times while I was sad “I think you do a great job with Earth day parties Mommy.  You are so creative.”  What a love bug.  So without further ado let me show you the 2024 party.

Food

The pb&j sandwiches are hiding underneath that bees wrap.

Menu

I had way too much food as usual.  People never eat as much as I expect.

In theory this menu should have been pretty simple for me (if my backup fridge hadn’t died). Here’s approximately how I made it work.

Food Prep

Several months/weeks before:

I have been making 2 loaves of sourdough for the last couple months and freezing one for the party.  To thaw I just unwrap the loaf and put it on a baking rack overnight and they were still perfectly crusty.  I also made and froze two batches of cookies pre-scooped.

A couple days before the party:

I made the bread for the pb&j sandwiches a couple days before the party and then sliced it and put it in containers. I also baked the two batches of cookies from frozen (at 375F for 13 minutes).

The day before the party:

I made the chili and chopped all the ingredients for the salad.  I also took out the loaves of sourdough to thaw.

The day of the party:

I made the pb&j sandwiches, put the chili/soup in crock pots to heat, assembled the salad, plated the cookies and put the sourdough out on a cutting board with some butter.

Overall everyone seemed happy with the food and people talked more about my sourdough than anything else (which let’s be honest is all I really wanted to hear)!  I think total for we went thru one loaf of pb&j sandwiches, one crock pot of lentil soup, one giant container of salad (consisting of 2 cucumbers, 2 pints of tomatoes, onion and 2 large heads of green leaf lettuce) and half the cookies for 19 adults, 11 kids (I know it seems like I made too much food but the previous weekend we had 54 “yes” RSVPs).  Other people brought items too like broccoli salad, cheese, tapenade and cookies, so that accounted for some of it.

We put out seating inside the porch, in the shade of the house and also in the shade of the maple tree in the yard.  We put several picnic blankets out for guests to use too (and sun tan lotion). 

Activities

May Pole Folk Dancing

I wanted to throw a bit of “May Day” into the mix this year, as who hasn’t wanted to frolic around a maypole?!  (Turns out the answer is most people, even if they know what a maypole is which is already rare here in America.)  Well anyway Will is a trooper and dug me a 3 foot deep hole for our maypole (13 feet of galvanized steel).  I got this idea from this clever tutorial though I couldn’t find rebar long enough to convince me it could structurally hold up 10 feet of steel pipe with 20 people dancing around it.  So instead I got a 3′ length of pipe with a threaded connector and a 10′ length of pipe and buried the 3′ length in the ground.

Everyone who participated said “it was more fun than expected” so I consider that a win!!!

Earth Piñata

The final set of swings!

Dany also was looking for candy

Patricia said this was her favorite activity.  I made a piñata entirely of recycled items then filled the piñata with hard candies I got from the bulk store and packaged in recyclable paper bags, foil covered chocolates from the bulk store, and plastic free temporary tattoos.  All the kids got several whacks in until Veronica busted it opened!  I think all the adults had a great time watching this one too.

Solar oven crayons

The solar oven in action

Some finished crayons

I made a solar oven from recycled materials for the party.  Because I’ve always wanted to make a solar oven.  We used broken crayons to make new crayons.  It was too cloudy the day of the event, but I baked the crayons today in full sun and it worked great!

Utensil sets

I wanted to give everyone a utensil set they could keep in their car/backpack/lunchbox/purse like the ones I carry around, but I didn’t have time to make 40 cases.  So instead I went to the thrift shop and bought 40 spoons/forks/knives and napkins and demonstrated a way to fold these together for easy transport.  You can take butter knives on planes so these are safe to keep in your carry on!  Julius said this was his favorite activity, but I’ll be honest only 2 people did this one.

Flower crowns

Julius and I with our crowns

Ibis and Joanna with their crowns (and sock puppet!)

Keaton and Owen sporting crowns

This seemed liked the favorite to me.  I bought (way too many) fresh flowers from the local florist (/our landscapers) and provided instructions for folks to make their own crowns.  They all came out so unique and cute.  I wanted an excuse to wear a crown.  And everyone obliged me.

Earth paper craft

This one was for the kiddos and I don’t have pictures of anyone doing one.  This one was simple to put together and used recycled crepe paper streamers I’ve been saving from Patricia’s under the sea party.

Pinecone Bird feeder

Behind Patricia on the right of the table is where the pinecones were! I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture!

A lot of kids made these and they were MESS-Y.  Several kids left them on the ground and Dany ate several.  I did provide recycled bags for people to take them home in but we also hung up about 5 that were instantly devoured by squirrels the next day.

Sock puppets

The kids seemed to love this one.  Patricia made several more sock puppets after the party, and also today.  It was just a “here’s a bunch of stuff, use your imagination” craft, which I used to like the best when I was a kid too.

Sock Puppet Theater

Joanna and Patricia show off their puppets.

I couldn’t have a party without cardboard crafts, so I made a puppet theater from recycled cardboard for the kids to play with their sock puppets in.

I also did a sock puppet rendition of “Gluscabi and the Wind Eagle” which is a tale from the Abenaki people about the wind.  The rendition I performed was from a book called Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children which I took out from the library.  As we know the indigenous peoples of the land we now call America were deeply in tune with the spirit of the Earth and its creatures so we have a lot to learn from them about protecting the Earth.  Julius, one of our cub scout friends and I read all the stories in this book and really enjoyed them!  Our favorite (the one Julius cracked up at the most) was a story about a trickster name Gluscabi who gets frustrated with the wind.  I made silly sock puppets of the three characters in the story and did my best performance of it.  I hope my humble attempt did it justice!  As an added bonus we learned a beautiful song that Gluscabi sings when paddling his canoe.

Cardboard Train

Does this look familiar? Well you’re right. I tried to pass along the train from Julius’ birthday party, but while over 10 people said they wanted it, no one ended up taking it home.   So this is the last hurrah for the train before we break it down!

Fire starters

I don’t know if I should talk about these!  My hot plate stopped working for some reason so the wax didn’t melt properly so 0 people did this craft!  It’s too bad because my test batch burned amazingly well!!!!

 

Favors

As Will said “it wouldn’t be an Earth day party without something planted” so I made plants the favors!  I totally forgot to give them out to all but the last people but the favors were herbs/beans planted in shells I had washed out.  They were marjoram, dill and navy beans.  

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Culinary Delights, Parties, Thrift Finds | 2 Comments

Quick Hiatus

Posted on April 29, 2024 by lexicolton

Hi All!

Just in case you were worried why I didn’t post last week, I wanted to let you know I’m taking a couple weeks’ hiatus as I prepare for the Earth Month/May Day party I’m throwing.  Rest assured I’ll have some great projects when I post again the week of May 5th.

I’ll leave you with this tidbit to keep you guessing:

Will:  what’s going in the piñata again?  Silverware?

XO,

Lexi

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments