365 Days With Kiddos - #2 - Your Child's Drawings and Paintings - An Awesome Birthday Card/Wall Hanging Project

Yesterday, I started my 365 Days With Kiddos posts with a post on repurposing your child's artwork into cards, stationary, and envelopes. Today, I want to share a project with you that my friend, Dominique and her kids made for my daughter's 4th birthday. On very stiff paper, I would suggest a 300 lb watercolor paper, Dom had her kids paint with watercolors. Once it was dry, she cut the first initial of Quin's name out of the paper (Quin's "Q" is 13" x 17"). She then used the left over parts from the painting to cut out Quin's age, the first initials of her kids' names and the words "happy" and "love", which they then glued onto the front of the "card". So simple and so pretty! This was my absolute favorite thing that Quin received at her birthday party. It is on her bedroom door so we can look at it several times a day. Thanks for the awesome idea, Dominique and your wonderful kiddos!

A Week of Birthday Posts - #5 - Birthday Party Food

Food, glorious food. Hehehe! We love it around here. And party food is oh so fun to research, decide upon, and prepare. I have found that for kids' birthday parties it is best to keep it simple. My children are adventurous eaters but that doesn't mean all of their friend are. In fact, my daughter, and all the moms, were the only ones who really liked my homemade strawberry rhubarb lemonade. It never even crossed my mind that most of the kids would find it way too tart...



I made a better decision on the healthy snack part of the party. After the kids made a craft, I served fruit and dip. I never realized that strawberries and mini marshmallows would be such a sell! The berries were organic and so deliciously sweet that they didn't need any special preparation. I just washed and hulled them, slid them onto a frilly toothpick, and kept them from sliding off with a single mini marshmallow. Every single one was eaten. The dip on the other hand, again something my daughter likes, was not a huge hit with some of the kids. I had made it during a cooking class I taught for older kids (ages 6 - 9) where it was well received. See what you think...


Honey Fruit Dip
Ingredients
~ 1 cup plain yogurt
~ 1 Tablespoon honey
~ Brown sugar to sprinkle on top
~ Fruit

Directions
1. Mix honey into yogurt.
2. Sprinkle brown sugar on top.
3. Dip strawberries, grapes, banana slices, whatever fruit you like, into the dip and enjoy!


And what would a party be without cake? Since we had other food and snacks I decided to go with mini cupcakes. This way the kids could eat one or two and get to chose exactly what they wanted.


My friend, Alannah, owns my favorite bakery and she is amazing with mini cupcakes. I am blown away by the array of flavors and her attention to detail. They are all beautiful!


Happy birthday, Quin! We can't believe how quickly you are growing. You are a wonderful daughter, friend, sister... We love you!

A Week of Birthday Posts - #4 - Birthday Party Food and Little Touches

This is post number four in the series on my daughters' birthdays. This one has some cheery photos of handmade details from my four year old's tea party.


As an artist, I pay attention to visual details. I love color and so do kids. My daughter Quin's birthday had a tea party theme, which she chose. In the past couple of years we have attended a princess and pirate party, an art making party, a dancing party, and recently we sadly could not attend a fun crazy hair/make your own pizza party.


Of course, not all parties have a theme but I am always game to work within a theme, so a tea party it was. Each child's place was set with a real tea cup from my collection. They drank fresh squeezed lemonade from them.


I don't go crazy with party decor. I do wish I had had the time to make a cheery banner but we focused on the table. Quin LOVES balloons so we made sure there were a few on her chair. I love the orange polka dot one :)


Colorful tissue paper flowers make me swoon. I stayed up until 2 AM making one for each guest to wear on their wrist as a corsage. And I don't say that like it was work, I love making them so it was fun. I will write a post someday on how to make them, but you can always google it. There are many good tutorials out there. The kids were tickled with their flowers. I showed them to Quin when she came down for breakfast and they made her day! The ones that were not taken home are still on our dining room table and I gaze at them throughout the day and remember the party fun. We made play dough for favors but these made great additional favors for the kids who remembered to take them home.


Tissue paper flowers in a vase...


...became corsages on the day of the party.


One important element, along to napkins, plates, and balloons that I purchased were the party hats, or tiaras. I am going to make each of my kids a birthday crown, something the like the one my friend, Serena, made for her little guy, but it was not to be this year.


We couldn't have a birthday party without a craft...


The kids made bejeweled butterfly place mats. I folded construction paper in half and drew a template on one side of the paper, then had them cut out the butterfly along the drawn lines.


Voila, a blank canvas butterfly, that they covered in jewels.



Only one more birthday party post, stay tuned! Number five will include recipes...

A Week of Birthday Posts - #3 - Colorful Party Favors for Kids

Our daughter turned 4 this year. I still can't believe it! She is growing up so fast and it is really amazing to see her change and grow. We had a fun time planning and creating for her birthday party. She was able to help with almost everything. We decided to make the party favors she gave her friends. We often make and give play dough as a homemade birthday gift and it is always well received by both parents and kids. For the favors we decided to make play dough, one ball each of six colors per kiddo, in a goody bag tied with metallic ribbon. Each child was also sent home with a lollipop.



I will re post the play dough recipe here so you can make some of your own...



Homemade Play Dough
By Tiffany Teske

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
1 Tablespoon Alum Powder (I buy it in bulk at a health food store)
2 cups boiling water
3 Tablespoons cooking oil (vegetable)
food coloring

Mix dry ingredients. Add water and oil. Mix well until it forms a dough. Divide into however many ball you need for the number of colors you want. Knead dough balls until they no longer sticky and add food coloring according to the colors you want to make.



Here are some colors to get you started...

Pink - 1-2 drops of red
Orange - equal parts red and yellow
Purple - equal parts red and blue
Black - 3 drops red, 3 drops blue, 2 drops green
Brown - 2 drops green, 2 drops red, 6 drops yellow
Turquoise - 1 drop green, 3 drops blue
Lime - 1 drop green, 9 drops yellow


As for the lollipops, I put a rolled up washcloth the bottom of a vintage flower pot, covered it with jelly beans, and stuck in the lollies, with a bit of metallic ribbon wrapped around each stick.

A Week of Birthday Posts - #2 - Two Summer Time Organic Lemonade Recipes

Every year at the same time the strawberries are suddenly half the price they were in the winter, I can get organic lemons by the bag, and fresh rhubarb is available. All of this coincides with my husband and daughters' birthdays. One of the special things I like to do for them is to make fresh lemonade. It is worth all of the effort and it is fun for my daughter and I to make together. Plus, it is always a hit with both adults and kids at a kid's birthday party, so this year we served it at my daughter's tea party. I would like to thank my friend, Jano, from Maine, for the following recipes, which I adapted to be organic and I have had in my collection for years.

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade
Recipe by Jano

This recipe is perfect for kids, who seem to find the second version a bit to tart and pulpy.

Ingredients:
~ 1 cup fresh organic lemon juice (about 6 average sized lemons)
~ 3/4 cup organic natural cane sugar
~ 4 cups water

Directions:
1. Squeeze your lemons. There are several ways you can do this; by hand; using a juicer; or my favorite method which is to use a metal lemon squeezer, like I have in the photograph at the end of this recipe. There is nothing like having the proper tool for a job, and for lemonade this IS the one...
2. Bring sugar and water to a boil. When the sugar dissolves reduce the heat and simmer a minute or two more.
3. Add lemon juice. Let cool. Refrigerate. Enjoy!




Strawberry-Rhubarb Lemonade
By Jano

Ingredients:
~ 1 cup fresh organic lemon juice (about 6 average sized lemons)
~ 2 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb
~ 3/4 cup organic cane sugar
~ 4 cups water
~ Zest from one organic lemon
~ 1/2 t organic vanilla
~ 1 1/2 - 2 cups organic strawberries, chopped, plus 2-3 whole strawberries

Directions:
1. Squeeze your lemons.
2. Heat water, rhubarb, sugar, dash of lemon zest, and vanilla. Bring to boil. When sugar dissolves, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, covered. Add chopped strawberries and boil again for two minutes, covered.
3. Cool mixture. Blend in food processor or blender. Add zest and lemon juice and blend. Pulse in whole strawberries if you want some fresh chunks.
4. Taste - adjust sweetness. Refrigerate. Serve.

A Week of Birthday Posts - #1 - My Strawberry Banana Baby's First Birthday Cake

"A whole cake?! What is going on here? Do you REALLY want me to eat this?!"

Both of my daughters and my husband have birthdays in the same week (lucky me, I am in November). This means there was a lot of cooking, baking, crafting, and party throwing going on last week. I will be posting some photos, how-tos, and recipes to share with you during the coming week.

Emmanuelle, our baby, turned ONE last week! A very exciting time which has included three new teeth (bringing the total to 7), walking her first steps, and surprising us with new skills every time we turn around. For her first birthday cake, I wanted something that was healthy or at least healthier than something from a big store. Our oldest daughter was given a super sugary, very blue frostinged cake for her first, by my mother, and Andre and I were smuggly thrilled when she wouldn't eat it. For Emmanuelle, who is a big eater, I wanted something delicious and free from colorings. I decided that a strawberry banana cake would be awesome. I searched the internet and was surprised that I could find reference to a couple of them, but no recipes... I decided to cobble together several recipes and try to make my own. I decided to make a banana honey cake and to frost it with a cream cheese butter strawberry frosting. It was a hit! ESPECIALLY with ME. YUM YUM... This cake is amazingly moist and soooooo delicious.


Banana Honey Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting - Baby's First Birthday Cake
by Tiffany Teske

Banana Honey Cake

Makes 2 8" square cakes

Ingredients
~ 1 c honey
~ 1 tsp soda
~ 1 c organic oatmeal, uncooked (quick or old-fashioned)
~ 3/4 c organic unsalted butter (omit sea sale below if using salted butter)
~ 1/2 c natural sugar
~ 2 organic eggs
~ 1 c mashed bananas (I used 4, three that were pretty ripe, one frozen one that was thawed, the riper the better)
~ 1 1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour
~ 3/4 tsp baking powder
~ 3/4 tsp sea salt

Directions
1. Bring honey to a boil in medium-sized saucepan. Add oats, the pour 1/2 teaspoon
of the soda over oats and stir to combine. Cover and let stand 10
minutes.

2. Beat butter until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy.
Blend in eggs. Add oats mixture and bananas then blend well. Sift together
flour, remaining 1/2 teaspoon soda, baking powder and salt. Add to
creamed mixture and blend well.

3. Pour batter into 2 greased 8-inch square cake pans. Bake in preheated 350 F degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack about 10 minutes. Remove from pans and let cool. Frost.


Quin blowing out her sister's birthday candles...


Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Approx 2 cups

Ingredients
~ 6 ounces cream cheese, softened
~ 1/4 cup organic butter, unsalted, softened
~ 1 cup icing sugar (For the baby cake I only used 1/4 c icing sugar)
~ 1/2 cup mashed drained fresh strawberries

Directions
1. Blend together the cream cheese and butter using an electric mixer on low speed until combined.
2. Add sugar, gradually, and the mashed strawberries; blend frosting again on low speed until the sugar is incorporated, 1 minute.
3. Increase mixer speed to medium and blend frosting until fluffy, 30-45 seconds more. You can add as much sugar as you like for the spreading consistency you want.


Emmanuelle, loving her first birthday cake... (No, she didn't eat it all, she ate less than 1/4 of it, which is a lot for a babe!

Happy December! And I Just Caught My Breath Enough to Realize I am a Year Older!!

Bonjour Decembre! How can it be time for you to appear?! My year starts out slowly in January, meandering along until spring, picking up speed in the summer, taking my breath away in the fall, then racing along into the new year... and every year it gets faster!!

This year, on my birthday in mid November, I am officially became closer to 40 then 30 but I still feel like I am 20. I love my birthday and am suspicious of people who say they don't. I like to do my best to have a birthday week or couple of weeks. I love belated birthday wishes and I am still eagerly awaiting one card that got lost in the mail, a package that was just sent, and a promised birthday phone call (and I am happy since until these all arrive or happen my birthday is not over)...

I am grateful to my beloved friends and family who sent thoughtful cards, emails, and Facebook messages, who showered me with gifts, meals, and treats, who took the time call (which to me is a treat since in this world of email it is becoming more rare). And to my man, who arranged a sitter to watch the kiddos for 2 hours while we went out for Indian food. And to my kiddos who went out to lunch with me at a local creperie (see adorable photo above). I love you all!

Do You Like Chocolate Cake?!! Organic Dark Chocolate Cake To Die For...

I can't see chocolate cake without thinking about the "Chocolate Cake for Breakfast" comedy routine by Bill Cosby. If you have never seen this, please check out the video above. Whenever I see chocolate cake, I exclaim "Chocolate Cake" just like the 4 year old he is talking about...


When I got the recipe for the chocolate cake above, I was super excited to try it, since I had not made a chocolate cake in awhile, since it is organic, and since it is pretty straight forward so I can make it without a lot of planning ahead. I always have the ingredients on hand. Plus, my three year old can help me. We made this for our friend Kim's birthday last week, and again today for my mother in law's birthday. When I asked her what her favorite kind of cake is she told me that "all cakes are my favorite, but if I had to pick one it would be chocolate". ME, TOO! We are so excited to have them visiting us from Ottawa... being able to make her this cake was, well, the icing on the cake.

PS She LOVED it!

Organic Dark Chocolate Cake

1/2 cup organic, fair trade cocoa (I used Cocoa Camino)
hot water and organic milk (see below)
1 cup unbleached organic flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp organic butter
1 cup organic sugar
1 free range egg yolk
1 tsp real vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a 1 cup measuring cup, put the cocoa powder and add enough hot water for the powder to dissolve while mixing it with a fork. Then fill the rest of the cup up with milk.

2. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda, mixing well.

3. Cream butter and sugar together using an egg beater, adding egg yolk and continuing to beat for one minute. Stir in vanilla and cocoa milk, then combine with the dry ingredients. Mix for one minute. Turn batter into a buttered 8 x 8 pan.

4. Bake for about 35 minutes or until cake tests done. Place on a cooling rack in pan. Once the cake has cooled completely, turn it out onto a plate.

Just FYI, both times I baked this cake the middle sunk lower than the sides...

Chocolate Icing
1/4 cup organic butter
1/4 cup organic, fair trade cocoa (I used Cocoa Camino)
1/4 cup organic milk
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp espresso, ground
1 tsp real vanilla extract

Melt butter; add cocoa, milk, sugar, and espresso. Bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Add vanilla. Stir rapidly for about 2 to 3 minutes. Spread over cake.

These recipes were adapted from Planet Green.

A Lovely Little Birthday Party

What could be better on a lovely Saturday afternoon but a birthday party for a little friend? Good fun for the whole family!


I was drooling over this sweet little art studio in the yard of my friend's friend, where the party took place. It has its own little wood stove inside, for those chilly winter days. I am soooooo envious!


Quinny bakes some more cake for the party...


Organic yellow watermelon, anyone? Why, YES!!


I know they are dreaded plastic but who can pass up a rainbow?


A little winged friend left behind some beauty...


I love the texture in this chair, my breezy summer dress, and the retro awesome linoleum pattern.


Soon there will be a sunny sunflower in this pot!


What year is it? Hard to tell isn't it?


Wee friends enjoy some healthy snacks before we bring on the cupcakes.


Even this tiny ant won't pass on a cupcake. Thanks for the delicious treats and for a wonderful party!

If you would like the cupcake recipes you can see this post and this post...

Birthday Gifts You Can Make - Part Two - Crayon "Cakes"

Crayon "cakes" are the second craft we made for our friend Aven's third birthday. These are so simple and they help a child to reduce, reuse, and recycle because they can take all their crayon stumps and make them into a sort of super crayon.


These crayon cakes draw raves from both kids and adults a like. They do not roll so they are awesome for plane rides, car rides, going out to eat... And the top part of the cake ends up being wax that rises to the top and separates from the color in the wax, so when you put the cakes right side up the non color part of the cake is on the table, so they don't leave colored wax on whatever you set them on.


Sooooo, let's get started...
How To Make Crayon Cakes


You will need:
- Old crayons
I collect bags of crayons when I see them at the thrift store. I also take crayons home from restaurants that give each child a new package of three crayons when they come for dinner. Then, of course, there are the crayons we use at home. It is difficult to say how many you might need. It depends on how many finished cakes you want and the size of your crayon numbs. I would say you need about 18 one inch crayons pieces per muffin pan that makes 6 muffins, and maybe 12 one inch crayon pieces per muffin pan that makes 12 muffins. Just experiment the first time. Wax crayons are better than soy, and they say not to mix them, but I really don't pay any attention to what mine are made of and I have not had a problem.
- Silicon or metal muffin pans
My mother gave me a ton of silicon pans that are shaped (snowflakes, jack o lanterns, Christmas trees) and while I gave them a whirl for making muffins, they never cooked right and made the muffins taste like plastic... I was a bit leery of the thought of baking in silicon anyway. Since I like to find new uses for the things I own, I turned them into our crayon cake making pans. Metal pans work fine, too, and you can often find them in various shapes and sizes for a very reasonable prices at the thrift store. I would not use silicon pans for baking food after making crayon cakes in them, and I am not sure what to say about using metal ones for both purposes. I have a different set of metal pans I use for crayon cakes and non food molds. You do not need oil either type of pan. The cakes will pop right out when they have cooled and hardened.
- Baking sheet
- Cooling rack

Making the Cakes
1) Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.


2) Gather your crayons and put them in a water proof container along with warm water (if the water is too hot the crayons will start to melt). After a minute or two you can pour out the water. The paper around the crayon should now come off very quickly with little effort (I wish I would have thought of this step the first few times I made these. It would have saved my husband, child, and I, a lot of peeling time!). Remove all the paper from your crayons.


3) Do not oil your pans. Break crayons into approximately one inch pieces. There is a lot of leeway here, so find your own way you like to do things. I tend to put many shades of the same color into each tin, so maybe 5 kinds of green, from hunter to seafoam, all in the same tin. You can also do something like all the primary colors together like red, blue, and yellow. Some colors seem to mix together and get muddy while others stay apart. In theory, if you let them melt and don't stir them or jostle them, they should stay separate. Just have fun and experiment. If using many colors, try to mix them so that all the pieces of one color are not together. Do not over fill the tin. Stop filling when the pieces are just below the top. They will melt down to a thickness of about half of the pan.


4) Put the pan on a baking sheet, just in case anything melts over. Put the pan and sheet in the oven and turn the heat off. Leave the pans in the oven and check the progress of the cakes melting. You do not need to watch over them. Just do what you like and check them occasionally. Once they look completely melted remove them from the oven and put the sheet on a cooling rack or trivet. Once the cakes have hardened you can pop them out of the pan.


5) Stack three cakes or more together and tie with a ribbon, jute, raffia, whatever you like. I save all the ribbon and decorations we get on gifts for this purpose. You can attach a little tag or include a recipe card with the gift that tells the recipient how to make their own crayon cakes.


You can make a coloring book out of computer paper to go with the cakes. You can trace over the images in coloring books using carbon paper or by holding the page and paper on the window like using a light box. Or you can draw simple line drawing by hand. Gather together your pages and cut a front and back cover from decorative paper. Using a hole punch, punch two holes on the left side on the top half of the page and two holes on the bottom half. Pass ribbon through the holes and tie. Yes, coloring books are cheap, but this way you can tailor the drawings to the little one's interests. And who would not like a special coloring book made just for them?

One last post on making birthday gifts to come... stay tuned. For the first project, Play Dough, click here.