Sugarwings – Page 14 – Karla's Cottage

How to make two ingredient Fluff Stuff

family, how-to projects, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 30, 2014

This is the easiest, cheapest, fluffiest stuff to make. All you need is shaving cream and corn starch.

I buy both at Walmart, so the supplies are under $2.

You will also need a bucket or bowl, and spoon. Possibly glitter if you like sparkles.

We LOVE sparkles, so dumped in a bunch of it.

I know I mentioned a spoon, but we found that it was more fun to mix with fingers.

I didn't say that it was more tidy to use fingers…

Here is how we did it:

We randomly added shaving cream and cornstarch as we played with it, then dumped in glitter.

Here is how you should do it:

Spray out a giant pile of shaving cream, reserving some in the can in case you need it.

Slowly add and mix in cornstarch till you get it to a good consistency. (about 1/2 to 3/4 box)

Add more shaving cream if needed.

Add glitter, if wanted. (You'll be glad you did)

I'd say you could add some food coloring if you 'd like. But we were going for summertime snow, and singing about Olaf as we made ours.

Sugarwings added some shells to play with after she was done pretending it was snow. This is how it looked after leaving it outside on the table overnight, uncovered. I'd say it would probably be easily saved in a plastic bowl and reused if wanted. But for us, the fun is in the making, so we'll spend another $2 and make some more next time.

Our Summer Of Fun has been going by much too fast.

But we are enjoying every minute of it.

Taking time off to be with the girls, doing craft projects, day trips, swimming, and just sitting on the porch telling stories has been good for my soul.

Probably not so good for business… but I have made time to create and am looking forward to the "Journal of Nature's Blessings" swap. (this photo is from my prototype). And I want to thank everyone who helped me de-clutter the Boutique with the purchases made during the 50% off sale! I went from 10 pages of inventory to 6.

Now, time to rebuild with new goodies.

But not quite yet, I'm going to soak up some more summer fun first!

Interested in the journal swap? Info here.

Free Fun in Kansas City for kids

Sugarwings, Travel

By Karla Nathan / July 26, 2014

We went to Crown Center recently, and while you can spend a lot there, you can also have a completely free, yet still jam packed day.

There are a lot of activities there for kids, like the aquarium, which was a bit pricey, $37 for two of us. It wasn't big, but you could easily spend a couple of hours there if you wanted to. It is aimed at kids and there are plenty of things to climb on and in.

Plus how often are you encouraged to pet a star fish?

My tip is to take your time, it is small, so don't rush it, by following the crowd that is working its way through from one display to the next. Stick around and enjoy the displays, because there aren't that many of them.

But our favorite part of Crown Center is the interactive play area that changes themes a few times a year. When we went earlier, it was a tribute to Oz. I've not been very often, this is only our third visit. The first was years ago when the play area was set up as a fairy tale land.

This time, it was all about recycling, reusing, and saving the planet. Complete with bicycles to pedal and power a light post, a pretend farmer's market to encourage eating local foods, a little play house where you learn to pack a lunch in reusable containers, and a life size doll that you could try clothes on and sort to see what needed to be donated to a thrift store when they didn't fit.

Then, you could play dress up yourself in the thrift store, or sit and read the books that had been donated.

There was an energy efficient car you could pretend to fill with gas and check the tire pressure, and a laboratory to learn about water resources.

Sugarwings lives in a world of make believe, so when she saw all of these props, she was in heaven. We could have spent days there. Or at least she could've…. My limit was about a half hour. But we stretched it to about an hour and a half, because she was thrilled with every aspect of the place. And it was NOT at all crowded. When we visited the Dorothy exhibit, that was packed. A more popular theme, I guess. Plus we went on a Saturday.

Fridays at Crown Center this summer are also featuring a free concert and outdoor movie. We didn't stay for that, but did have a snack in the Crayola Cafe and shopped in the Crayola store, where we could do some free art projects.

There is also a free craft area called Kaleidoscope that we have never made it to. Next time, we will plan extra time for that. Hallmark supplies the materials and crafts, and from what I saw the other kids carrying around, they were high quality, good projects.

Interested in the journal swap? Info here.

How to make fizzy bath bombs

how-to projects, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 24, 2014

In our ongoing quest for the crafty-est summer ever, we decided to make some fizzy bath bombs. First of all, those things are way cool. Second, they can be pricey for something that dissolves that fast. It was a bit cheaper (and more fun) to make our own.

I looked around at various sets of directions and recipes online. Then kind of consolidated and made up my own.

Here is what we used:

1 cup baking soda

1/2 cup citric acid (I found it in the canning section at Walmart, $3 for this little jar, I bought two jars which is enough to make about 3 batches and have a little bit left over to sprinkle on sliced apples for a picnic)

1/2 cup corn starch

2 tablespoons salt

3 tablespoons coconut oil (sofftened, not melted or hard)

about 8 tablespoons liquid (we used water)

few drops of scented oil (we had lavender)

The salt that I bought was the wrong kind, but I had some of this in the cabinet, which worked pretty good. I'd purchased ice cream salt, that was too chunky to use. Epsom salt would probably be fine too.

You can use food coloring, if desired.

Oh and glitter! Ours was in a magic wand shaker that Aunt Sissy gave to us.

First you mix all the dry ingredients, then add the oil and the essential oil drops.

Stir well. Then mix the food coloring and water together in a squirt gun. I saw that Martha Stewart used a mister/sprayer thingy in her directions, but we didn't have one of those.

Start adding the colored liquid a squirt at a time.

The citric acid has a reaction to the baking soda when you drop the bomb in the tub, that is what makes the fizziness. It's also what you want to prevent from happening when you are making them. Save the fizz for the tub, not the mixing bowl!

The trick is to have one person add the liquid while the other stirs non stop. A bit of fizz breaks out with every squirt, but whip it in fast and it goes away.

Mix and mix while adding spritzes of water until you get the consistency that will hold when you squeeze it into a ball.

Next, press it into molds.

We used the bottom of a measuring cup to press the mixture down hard, and get it compacted. Next, you wait a day or two till it sets up.

We scraped up all of our crumbs, and all the remnants in the bottom of the bowl and on the spoon, then added some water to see if it would bubble up, because we couldn't wait that long. And yep, it was as fizzy as an alka seltzer!

The food coloring and the glitter make the bath water pretty. But everyone might not enjoy that as much as we do. You can always leave that stuff out.

We got about 6 large hearts and 6 smaller tartlet shapes out of our batch.

Interested in the journal swap? Info here.

Upcycled crayons

family, how-to projects, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 15, 2014

Our summer of projects and experiments got off to a fine start. This one really turned out good.

We made some new crayons in fun shapes. Those two grand fairies had an unmanageable amount of art supplies, and way too many open boxes of "color crins" (what I always called them as a kid, and still think of them as. I really thought that was the name of them and Crayon was the name brand. Like the whole tissue/Kleenex thing- it was crins/Crayons)

We decided to melt them down into a new look and share them with friends.

It was also a good excuse to clean out the craft drawers, and along the way we tested each marker to see if they still worked, threw away the duds, and got all the supplies sorted.

Here are a couple of things I learned in the process:

1- The papers come off easier if you soak the crins in hot water for a bit.

2- Name brands matter! Crayola's are the BEST. The cheap knock off crayons were not as easy to work with, they got all mooshy in the water, the papers stick and don't want to come off. On the Crayolas, the papers just fall away, and the crayon itself still is perfect. I know that with my own art supplies, especially paints, cheapos aren't worth buying. I'll remember that for the kids too.

3- Unwrapping crayons is a hideously monotonous job and you should either find a partner with an extended attention span to help, or plan on doing it alone while she entertains herself.

4- One of the most fun parts of the job is shaking the glitter out of the table cloth when you are done.

My partner isn't one of those people with an extended attention span. She decided to entertain herself choreographing the project and taking my photos while I worked away on the monotonous part of the job.

She has some directorial skills and coached me into being a better actress for the camera. (I wish she had directed me to the make up trailer before my closeups…)

Once we got to the part where she could break and sort the colors, then add glitter, she became involved again. I'll spare you the photos of her toothbrush, closeups of the trash can, and the other items she took pics of while I unwrapped and unwrapped and unwrapped til I gave up and decided we had PLENTY of crayons to work with.

The directions I'd seen for making these, said to use a silicone baking pan. We started to use this one, then decided other shapes would be more interesting. So, we went for flowers and hearts. But, I discovered when we were done, that the wax doesn't all come out. I'm glad I didn't follow Sugarwings' advice and make a few of each shape. I'm wishing now that I'd stuck with just one pan, not two. Because both are ruined. But I guess that means that they are now craft pans.

We will use them for home made side walk chalk and salt sculptures. Those are some of projects we have lined up. I filled a shopping cart at Walmart with summertime supplies, here is what we are keeping on hand for various activities:

2 boxes of rock salt
1 gallon of vinegar
4 boxes of baking soda
food coloring
6 boxes of corn starch
2 squirt guns
6 cans of shaving cream
Pink, purple, and white tempura paint
1 large box of plaster of paris
Tons of pink and silver and purple GLITTER!
100 pounds of play sand

The crayon shapes turned out cute. I don't know that the glitter will actually transpose onto paper when you draw with them.

But we enjoy dumping it into everything we do.

Here is how you make the shaped colors:

Soak and peel off crayon wrappers
Break crayons into silicone baking pans
Sprinkle on glitter (just for the fun of it, I doubt if it stays on the paper when you color)
Bake at 350 for 5 minutes, check every minute after that till all are melted.
Leave pans alone for an hour or so. If you try to get the wax out too soon, the crayons break.
Bake some bread or cookies right after so the house smells better. Hot crayons stink.

Silly projects

Dew Drop, Food and Drink, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 7, 2014

Last week, the grand fairies and I made salt sculptures to paint. I really see no point whatsoever in making them… except that they were fun to do.

Basically, it is a bowl of salt, a ton of glitter, and enough water to moisten. Then, you press it in a mold to let it dry, supposedly rock hard so you can paint them and use them for blocks. Ours didn't get rock hard, they were a bit crumbly still. But fun to paint anyway.

Heck, anything you can smear paint around on, is good for a bit of entertainment.

Afterward, we played "dinner theater". I set their table up in front of the tv, which is a giant treat here. The TV is supposed to be off during meals and we sit together to eat.

But this is summer vacation, so everything is a treat!

And Dumbo was on, how could any of us be expected to turn that off to go have lunch????

After lunch was served, the littles had some tea, and were given menus featuring all the M&M colors I had to chose from. I figured I'd sneak in some learning during the fun. Reading for Sugarwings, and colors and counting for Dewdrop. Sugarwings read the menu to her little sis, and then they counted out their order as they sorted the colors together.

And of course, anything tastes better when served with antique silver tongs from a crystal dish.

ps- I'm having a Summer Clearance sale in the Boutique. I've neglected that poor little shoppette too long, I need to clean up, clear out, and refresh it all. You are welcome to soak up some summertime savings and help me get a fresh start, by using this link and getting 50% off everything in the store:

http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=Summersale

(You must use that address to get the special price. Going to the regular address does NOT take you to the 50% discount)

Happy 4th!

Dew Drop, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 4, 2014

I hope your holiday is a peachy one.

The grand fairies and I celebrated a little early by trying to create our own fireworks. Not with explosives, though, with paint.

We made red, white, and blue glitter paint bombs by filling eggs with paint.

We sealed up the holes with tissue paper. First, we damped the tissue with a bit of paint, and it stuck right on.

I tacked a poster board to the garage wall and they let loose with the paint bombs, hoping to create big, spattery, fire works on the paper.

A lot of power went into the tossing, but the eggs didn't make as much of a spectacular splat as we thought they might.

But a lot of fun was had in the process. The eggs kind of landed on the poster with a wet thump, and then just hung there like a blob. Maybe we should have added water to the paint for a more dramatic effect? It could have been too thick.

They soon discovered it was a good consistency for finger painting.

I wouldn't say the result we got was what we were led to expect from Pinterest, but it was still a happy experiment.

http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=Summersale

(You must use that address to get the special price. Going to the regular address does NOT take you to the 50% discount)

Roots and Bliss

Dew Drop, dogs, fairies, family, Sugarwings, Travel

By Karla Nathan / June 27, 2014

For the solstice, we drove to the Ozarks to go to the Roots and Bliss festival hosted at a campground on the river.

I'm not much of a camper, or a festival goer. But I knew that my littles would be there, and that their dad was a major contributor to the event, he'd been working on the venue for the whole previous year.

It was really quite nice to see him in action, and to see the respect and caring that he was shown by the attendees.

I didn't attend any of the workshops, but I liked listening.

And of course, playing with the grand fairies.

And splashing around down in the river.

My only regret is that we didn't bring dogs with us. We might have been the only people there without a pup. Well, not quite, but there were lots of furry friends around.

Funny, many of the dogs had at least one blue eye.

In the last few years, I've started a habit of making fairies on beaches I visit. At this beach, there wasn't much in the way of shells, so I didn't think about it, til I saw that mossy green, heart shaped rock and knew it had to be a bodice for a fairy dress.

Then, saw a skirt shaped rock to match. The head was easy too, then I was stumped with no rock wings or appendages. (oh, maybe "stumped" was a rude way to put it)

So, I cheated, and tucked the beach stones into my pocket for later. When I got back up to the camp, I poked around and found some sticks, and dead leaves that worked out pretty good and I was able to finish my little sprite.

The weekend was visually quite lovely, pretty lights, a winding, candlelit pathway, happy faces every where. Yep, we were very proud of our boy for his part in it all.

There was yoga, from the talented Miss Tree, who has travelled the world to become a master class teacher, and who thought up and started the whole Roots and Bliss idea. I'm glad they were blessed with beautiful weather and a good crowd after all the hard work that they put into the planning.

Sugarwings' mom was a fire dancer, and I was so mesmerized, I didn't even think of taking a photo. But here is the fam before the show started…

Did I mention that we were proud of our boy? And I'm a bit proud of myself for going. I had no intention of doing it. This sort of thing isn't my typical weekend, but sometimes you do need to get out of your regular routine and try something different, don't you?

I prefer books and TV or movies to live music, and get plenty of out door life in my own yard and have never felt the need to camp. So, the weekend was going to be a stretch for me.

At the last minute, I offered to join my husband (he wouldn't have missed it for anything, he'd been out of town and hadn't seen the girls all week. That man would have driven anywhere to see his grand daughters after a week without them). So I gathered my courage and decided I'd sleep in a tent in the wilderness.

Luckily, we got there and found a very nice, air conditioned, cabin to rent for the night and I didn't even have to unroll a sleeping bag.

But I would have done it! I was willing to give it a try.

And trying something different is kind of nice. Especially, when you are surrounded by such nice people.

http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=Summersale

(You must use that address to get the special price. Going to the regular address does NOT take you to the 50% discount)

And please know, I will refund excess postage after boxingup your purchase and weighing it.

Summer Fun with Dewdrop and Sugarwings

Dew Drop, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 23, 2014

The grand fairies and I have big plans for summer. We are going to make chalk, play dough, and all sorts of things. I've been busy pinning lots of fun ideas for us to experiment with.

We've tried this one already. But it got a bit out of hand… The Pinterest Recipe was for a few cups of sand, some glitter, cornstarch, and water.

We used 50 lbs of sand, and probably too much water. Plus a bunch of food coloring. It was FUN!

I saved the sand in a tub with a lid so it could be revisited later for more fun, but it got smelly after a few really hot days. Oh well, that is why its called an experiment, you try things, you learn something about it, you try again.

Instead of 'moon sand' we got a sparkling swamp. And girls that sparkled too. Someone dunked their hair in the glitter swamp and I think it might still be washing out.

And I seriously wonder if the silver glitter will ever be completely be gone from the hot tub… maybe I shouldn't have let them go for a "hot pool" swim after this experiment.

And so it begins

Books, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 2, 2014

School is out, and Sugarwings was sorry to see it end. I've decided to do what I did last summer and take some time off with the girls for summer activities. Lots of painting, zoo time, movies, etc.

Before first grade was over, we were invited to an Author's Tea Party in the classroom to see the books each kid had written and illustrated. Since Sugarwings' illustrations are always unique (like her self portrait, above), I knew her book would be a fun one.

It was. You could see the influence Disney had on her topic too. Princess Leandra was the title of her book.

We decided to honor the occasion by dressing up for the tea party.

I wore my tea party hat and good dress.

After I saw this photo, I realized just how big that child has become. I'm trying to break the habit of carrying her everywhere, now that I see that soon, it will be her turn to carry me.

She already misses school. For now, she has offered to help me prep for our big party and the family reunion that goes along with it. After Birdsong ends, we are having a family dinner with relatives that are in town, and the grand fairies have a Fairy Tea Party Breakfast for their great grandmother while she is visiting from Wyoming.

It's starting out to be an exciting summer! Swimming, zoos, walks in the woods, arts and crafts, movies, and most likely, more tea parties. I've been collecting ideas from Pinterest for things to make, and Sugarwings and I have compiled a shopping list of ingredients to have on hand for them.

I can't wait.

More Disneyland

Sugarwings, Travel

By Karla Nathan / May 20, 2014

When you are at Disney on your birthday, you get enough wishes for a happy day to last a lifetime! I don't think I've ever been told, Happy Birthday, that many times.

Even the numerous Facebook well wishes aren't any comparison to the ones from the park employees.

We had my birthday lunch with Ariel.

And Cinderella, among other royalty.

The food at Ariel's Grotto was spectacular, and they were very helpful in fixing Sugarwings a gluten/dairy free meal. There was no problem at all throughout the park, especially since she is only sensitive, not allergic. We can go gluten/dairy careful, not avoid it completely. We made sure she had solid, healthy meals, then let her have treats and dessert that are usually not allowed.

Heck, it was vacation!!

My husband doesn't care much for Disney, but he does enjoy watching his girl smile and then drown him with hugs. So he is happy to go. Especially since I don't mind him leaving for a few hours to get a break, Sugarwings and I were fine on our own for a bit.

And he made it back in plenty of time to meet us for the parade. In off season, the parade is smaller, but I swear, the crowd to watch it is NOT. We planned ahead, and found a spot on a bench for me, and my husband sat in the stroller with Sugarwings on his lap. (I am not allowed to post that photo)

Maybe we should have planned a little further ahead to actually get a whole bench… But at least we were down front and could see the whole show.

I think that if we go back, I'd plan a picnic dinner, get a to-go meal, find a bench and take our time waiting for the parade to begin.

There are plenty of to-go restaurants that are good, but we sure liked our sit down meals. We ended up doing two character dinners, by accident. We'd planned to meet the royalty at Ariel's Grotto, and paid for it in advance along with our room, and shuttle transport.

(by the way, that is so much better than renting a car, since we only go from the airport to the park and don't leave, $90 for all of us, round trip, cheaper than a car too. Plus it was adorable to hear every little girl on the bus start singing along to Frozen as we watched the movie on monitors.)

We had so much fun, mingling with the princesses, that I forgot about our meal vouchers. Untill a couple hours later when it struck me, with a sick feeling that I'd paid cash for a meal that had already been paid for and thought I was out about a hundred bucks!

A very sick feeling. Visting Walt is expensive enough without paying for the same thing twice.

Which is why it is great to have a cell phone. I called customer service to get their advice and was set up with reservations at Goofy's Kitchen that night where I could use the vouchers. Even though they were for lunch price at the mermaid restaurant, for about $30 each, and Goofy's Kitchen's dinner was $47 each. We were able to use them and not pay a difference.

The phone call itself wasn't as carefree as the results. My battery was running low, and I was trying to hurry, but the park was so loud, the operator couldn't hear me. Sugarwings took advantage of me being on the phone and distracted and climbed a light pole. Really high.

Park employees told her all day that the rule was: One Foot on the Ground at ALL Times. But that is not an easy rule to follow.

And my poor husband had to sit through another endless parade of characters interrupting his meal! Sugarwings and I loved it. He just wanted to eat without a giant headed creature bothering him.

Not everyone is born to love Disneyland. But he tolerates it okay for us.

He's a keeper.

Okay, I promise, this is the last vacation post.

It was a great trip, I just wish our whole family could've came. Sugarwings spent a great deal of time picking out gifts to take home and talking about the people who couldn't join us.

She's a keeper too.