Elf on the Shelf

Link to my Pinspiration

My Pinspired Creation



I saw all the Pins about Elf on the Shelf, and thought it would be lovely to introduce to our Christmas celebrations, despite some family members objecting to having a "Spy" in the house!  However when the girl Elf book and doll arrived it looked a bit boring, and not very girlie, so I returned to Pinterest to get some ideas to make her a bit more special.  I decided I needed to sort out her hair, and eventually found I could buy a Moxie Girl Doll curly wig, which fitted perfectly.  However, once the elf had her new haircut, her hat wouldn't fit!!  So instead I made her a headband in felt with a white ribbon rose as decoration.  She was still a bit plain looking, so I stuck silver stars to her ruff, added a tiny white ribbon and flower trim to her tummy and an organdie ribbon tutu.  I intended to add white fur/fluffy cuff to her gloves, and to give her some black boots with matching fur/fluffy cuffs, but I ran out of time.  I did add some practical velcro to her gloves, so that she will find it easier to hold things when she returns from the North Pole, and if I get chance when the children are asleep I will add wires to her arms and legs, to make her more poseable.

My Verdict
I'm pretty happy with how she turned out :-)

What I'd do Differently Next Time
I wish I had starting altering her earlier so that I had time to finish all my ideas (boots etc).

Giant Sun Print

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

OUR PINSPIRED CREATION


We used a large piece of sugar paper as our background, the Pinspiration recommended to use a darker colour and the darkest we had was pink!  This didn't please Little Prince very much, but he soon got over once we started though.  I gave each of the Littlies (and Drama Teen) a piece of A4 printer paper and some scissors and let them loose cutting shapes.  We didn't have any repositionable glue so we used small pieces of blue tack to stick the cut out stencils as closely to the paper as we could.  Then we sellotapted our creation to one of the patio windows, to wait while the sun does its work.

OUR VERDICT
Everyone had fun cutting and sticking their designs to the paper, especially Princess Lollipop whose greatest ambition is to use scissors!!  I will add another picture once our Sun Print once it has faded, which given the weather has turned cloudy and overcast could take quite a while!!

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
Unless our Sun Print doesn't work at all, I don't think we'd change very much at all.  All THREE Littlies (including not so little Drama Teen lol) had a lot of fun cutting and sticking their shapes, and they are excited to see how it turns out :-)

Cookie Ice Cream Bowls TAKE TWO

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

OUR PINSPIRED CREATION
We used he same UK Recipe as yesterday as taste had not been the problem, just my absentmindednes!!  I was more organised and before we even started I weighed and measured and made sure I had ALL our ingredients out and ready!!  This time it was just me and Little Prince making the dough, so it was a little less hectic!  We made the dough into both cookie bowls and into ordinary flat cookies.

OUR VERDICT
Once again the cookie bowls just spread all over the upside down muffin tin.  Despite copious amounts of greasing, I still couldn't manage to remove the baked dough in one piece, in fact it just came out in small lumps!  However, the flat cookies we made turned out very well and were very tasty :-)

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I think we'll give up on trying to make bowls and we'll just stick to cookies!!  At least they turned out well!!

Cookie Ice Cream Bowls

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION



OUR PINSPIRED CREATIONI decided that we would use a UK recipe for soft choc chip cookies, both so that I wouldn't have to "translate" the recipe and also so that the Littlies were more likely to enjoy the familiar taste.  Our experience with Jelly Biscuits was a bit of a disastrous start to our weekly baking challenge, so I'm trying to make this time a bit more successful :-)  We weighed and measured, sifted and mixed and then put our "bowls" in the oven to cook.  When checking the recipe to see what temperature to set the oven to, I noticed to my horror that we'd forgotten to use eggs!!!  No wonder the mix was too crumbly and I'd had to add milk!!  There was no way to rescue it by now, so we cooked it anyway to see how it turned out.

OUR VERDICT
It was a MESS!!!  The eggless mix had spread all over the upside down muffin tray, and despite all the greasing I'd done it was stuck solid!!  Despite this the Littlies wanted to try and eat some, so they broke off some pieces and ate them - they were declared tasty :-)  So not a complete disaster, but pretty close!!!

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I'd get all the ingredients out and weighed before the Littlies got involved, and I'd make sure not to forget any ingredients!!!

Jelly Biscuits

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

OUR PINSPIRED CREATION


As part of our Summertime Fun list, I decided I would cook something with the Littlies each week.  I found some fun and different recipes on Pinterest, that I thought they would like.  This was the first one we tried.  I had to convert the American baking terms to something I could understand, but once I'd done this we were away.  The recipe said to use a mixer, but to keep the Littlies more involved we used a large mixing bowl and wooden spoons.  Little Prince enjoyed making the dough balls more than Princess Lollipop, who didn't like getting her hands sticky!  We managed to keep the hand washing to between batches of flavour/colour instead of between each dough ball, as Princess Lollipop tried to insist she needed!!

OUR VERDICT
We used four different flavours of jelly powder mix - blackcurrant, orange, raspberry and strawberry.  And probably due to differences between US Jello and UK Jelly our flavours were overwhelming, and our colours weren't anywhere near as strong.  Princess Lollipop tried blackcurrant and orange, and hated both, she refused to try any other flavours after that.  Little Prince said they were "fantastic" and "awesome" but only really enjoyed the orange flavour, which coincidently is one of his favourite jelly flavours.  Mr Messy said they were "alright" but that the flavour was a bit overpowering.  We probably squashed our dough balls a little too enthusiastically too, as our biscuits were noticeably thinner than our Pinspiration.

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
The finished product wasn't a big hit really, so we probably won't be trying this recipe again.

Little Prince's Summer Fun Diary

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY PINSPIRED CREATION
So that Little Prince can practice his writing skills during the Summer Holidays, I decided to make him a "Summer Fun Diary."  However, to give him more direction than a daunting blank page, I printed out a question sheet for each day, with spaces for Little Prince to write his answers.  The questions asked him to write the date, stick in the "Summer Activity" card, say what was his favourite part of the day etc.

LITTLE PRINCE'S VERDICT
He isn't too impressed with having to write during the holidays, it feels too much like work, I think.  He has mostly co-operated with filling in his diary for the previous day after breakfast, although I'd prefer he took a little more care writing neatly and using sentences.

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I don't think I'd change anything, using questions for each day, rather than facing a blank page has been a huge help to Little Prince.

Menu Board

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION

I need a way to organise what we are eating each night, so that we can get the shopping right (and cheaper, without all the "panic buys"!!). We have been using a scrappy bit of paper, with the menu at the top and the shopping list at the bottom, but its not pretty and we keep forgetting to sit down and work out what we will eat for the week. After seeing all the pretty and organised Menu Boards on Pinterest, I decided we needed one too :-) After trawling through loads of different styles, I decided that this one would suit our family's way of working best. Although I am making it with space for a shopping list, instead of having two menu card holders.

I bought a flat pine frame on sale in the Supermarket, I Mod Podged pretty scrapbook paper to the pegs. Then I filled the frame with co-ordinating scrapbooking paper, and added the wording to the frame and letters for each day of the week to the pegs. Then I had to start work on the menu cards, I made a document with two columns and on the left hand side column typed the name of the dish, and on the right hand side the ingredients I would need from the shop.  After cutting out all the different meals, I folded the paper in half, so that the meal was on the front and the ingredients on the back and laminated them all.   I made a pocket to hold all the menu cards, by trimming down a small, slim cardboard box and then covering it in scrapbook paper and decorating it a little, I glued the box and pegs into place and added a decorated bulldog clip top hold the shopping list.

I kept the original glass from the frame, and placed it behind the "Menu Board" so that if I want to use it in the future its there waiting.

MY VERDICT

I think it looks very pretty, and fingers crossed it will make us a bit more organised - I'll let you know if a few weeks :-)

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT
I'd get on with it quicker and not faff about waiting for ages!!!  And I'm going to have to make a minor modification by gluing the scrapbook paper with the Menu Card box and bulldog clip glued to it, to a backing piece of thicker card.  In use the paper isn't sturdy enough to prevent it from becoming damaged with repeated opening and closing of the bulldog clip.