C is for Cake Stalls

Yesterday saw my first guest post for a well known Australian company published. I was (and still am) so excited.  The post features Bear and Bee helping to make Mini Strawberry Yoghurt Cupcakes for their Kindy's recent cake stall.  It is a great recipe and being mini in size it makes a lot of cupcakes for a small investment of time and ingredients.  Follow this link to see the guest post and recipe in full.

We also made some Chocolate Playdough and Peppermint Playdough to be sold at the Cake stall.  This recipe for Easy No-cook Playdough from Nurturestore is fantastic and one that we have used many times.  For Peppermint playdough, we substituted green food colouring for the red and added a few drops of peppermint flavouring essence.

The idea for Chocolate playdough came from The Imagination Tree.  It looks and smells divine and, even though we have made it before, it still manages to trick Bee into trying some.  It's definitely not tasty like the real thing though.

We would love some ideas on what to make for future cake stalls. What have you made for a cake stall that sold well?

C is for Collections

I recently applied for and was approved to take part in creating Ebay Australia Collections.  I  must admit I was excited to be one of the first to be able to use this new feature on Ebay Australia.  I had lots of fun going through the items available for sale on Ebay and selecting those that fit with my themes of Kid friendly kitchens, Kids in the kitchen (pretend play), Anyone for Tea (tea parties), Growing your own and Cooking in the great outdoors.

I invite you to come and have a look at my collections.  Let me know what you think.

R is for Rainy Days

Image Credit: Mr Printables

Since moving to a new city we are experiencing more rainy days than we are used to.  I have found it useful to have a folder of rainy day ideas to go to when I am at a loss for what to do with Bear and Bee while we are stuck inside.

During the summer months Bear and Bee are happy to play in the rain and jump in puddles but as the weather starts to cool down they are less inclined to want to go outside.

With this in mind I have come up with a list of cooking activities that are perfect for a rainy day.

Get in a twist with homemade pretzels.  These are great with a bowl of soup or just on their own as a tasty snack.

Need to move fast? Try decorating ready made biscuits with icing pens, sprinkles and mini marshmallows.

Don't get messy.  Get the kids to make some felt pizzas.  They will have fun coming up with their own toppings.

Brighten a dreary day with these Rainbow Muffins.

Finally, want to slow down and warm up?  Momables has this great homemade Hot Chocolate recipe.  Delicious!

What is your go to activity on a rainy day?

R is for Red Riding Hood and Carrot Soup

Little Red Riding Hood and Carrot Soup.  An interesting combination I know, but that is what Bear and Bee came up with today.  It is amazing how 4 year olds can take something traditional (a fairy tale), add in something modern (a tv show scenario) and mix it up to create something all of their own (hence Red delivering Carrot soup to Grandma to make her feel better).  I guess they really are cooks in the making.

Although I like them using real ingredients as often as possible, even in pretend play, I helped Bear and Bee to make some carrots out of an orange foam sheet.  We added in some small pieces of yellow paper for honey and mixed it all up in a bowl for Grandma to enjoy. 

At various times throughout the day, Bear and Bee have launched into the Red Riding Hood scenario.  Taking it in turns to play a sick Grandma lying in bed coughing, and a cheery Red Riding Hood with soup safely stashed in her basket.  Unfortunately I am stuck playing the Big Bad Wolf.  On the bright side, in our version, the wolf gets invited in to Grandma's house to share the soup.

Which fairy tales or stories do your children like to role play?

C is for Celery Prints

Carving potatoes to make prints is familiar to most of us from our primary school days. However I am starting to see more and more creative ways of using other types of vegies to make great prints with paint.

Flowers prints made using radicchio stems look great. Have a look at this idea from Martha.

Radicchio are a little hard to get here at the moment so when I saw this post on the Parentella site using celery to make prints that look a little like roses I knew it would be fun to try.

Supplies for celery prints

I followed Wendy's steps but as with all things involving children they didn't quite turn out as planned. I think next time I need a larger (more mature) bunch of celery and will cut it further up the stems.  I did think the smaller bunch of celery would be easier for Bear and Bee to hold but the flower shape wasn't as clear.  That's not to say the girls didn't have fun.  Bee immediately bypassed the celery stalks for the leaves which she had a lot of fun with.  At the moment Bee is loving painting the whole sheet of paper and mixing colours so this worked out perfect for her.

 

 

Print and swish!

Bear on the other hand is not as keen on getting paint on her hands so she was happy to stick to printing and filled most of the sheet of paper.  I was going to use the print for Mother's Day gifts but now I think I will keep them for another project.  Maybe I will cut out sections and use them, with a little embellishment, to make thank you cards.

What foods do you incorporate into craft activities for your child?

Cooking and Play: Felt Pizzas

I am constantly working on new features to improve the threefootcooks blog in order to make it a one stop shop, so to speak, for cooking with children. If you are a regular follower of this blog you will see some of these new features over the next few months.

The first one is a monthly feature on ways to include cooking in your child's play. Bear and Bee both like to cook for all sorts of situations. Whether its pretend baby food for their dolls, playdough cupcakes or a 'barbecue' on the cubby house deck Bear and Bee can spend a lot of time cooking.

So when I spotted an idea for felt pizzas on Pinterest I knew I had to make a set for each girl (seeing how they both love real pizza). My inspiration came from here on the Learning for kids website. I didn't worry about a pizza box as most of our pizzas are homemade anyway. However I am sure if you asked nicely at your local pizza shop they would give you a clean one. Instead we set up a cardboard box oven and "cooked"our pizzas.

One tip I have learnt recently for cutting felt is to draw the design on freezer paper and then iron it to the felt. Once you have cut out the pieces you need the paper just peels off. This method eliminates the need for pins and make the process a whole lot easier. Freezer paper in Australia needs to be purchased from a craft shop. I believe it is an American product and is different to the freezer paper/plastic that is sold here in our grocery stores. It is very handy stuff to have in your craft cupboard too - think printing directly onto fabric using freezer paper and your inkjet printer plus lots of other uses too.

I drew mushroom, capsicum, pineapple and salami pieces onto the freezer paper before ironing it to the felt. You could just cut them freehand from the felt but as I was doing enough for two this was a simpler option. For cheese and ham pieces I cut rectangular shapes straight from the felt.

Thankfully their real pizzas aren't set out like this!

There are many versions of felt pizzas, including some as busy bag activities. Check out the threefootcooks Pinterest Cooking and Play board for more ideas.

Now off to make more pizza!