Valentine's Treat: Two Ingredient Strawberry Fudge

I mentioned yesterday we made a little Valentine treat to go along with some of our Valentines (or these Valentines) to be delivered locally. I found this recipe, where else, on Pinterest. If you want to see the post I read, you can see it here. I actually have added this blog to my reading list. I love her photos and recipes. Speaking of blog reading lists, if you're stopping by regularly, please take a moment to join this site and let me know you're reading. It would be great to hear from you. 

Anyhoo, I tried out the two ingredient recipe, and here is the tale:

Ingredients

What's that you say? There are THREE ingredients in that there photo? Well, yes there are. But only TWO of them are mandatory. The third one...

...this one - it's just for decoration.

Not necessary, but pretty.

If you clicked through, you'll see Cookies & Cups used little hearts on the top of their fudge. I looked for these, albeit only where I was already shopping, not on a special trip or anything, and I didn't find anything. I had this colored sugar left from a trip to Dean & Deluca when I had cash burning a hole in my pocked to buy something. And I chose colored sugar. Ahem. It worked perfectly for this recipe. You'll see!

You melt the white chocolate chips, however you please.

I microwaved on this day.

Eventually, you'll have melted chips.

Then you add in the strawberry frosting.

Mix it up.

Pour it into a greased or wax papered 8x8 dish.

In your pajamas, with an antique high chair nearby.

Make it look pretty on top.

Add decoration.

Refrigerate.

Once it's set, you can pull it out of the pan and cut it into pieces. That's why I like to leave the wax paper sort of long on the sides - so it'll lift right out.

Then I used these...

...to tie some pieces up and make a pretty package!

Then, I attached the love bug valentine.

Then I stacked up the remaining pieces.

You know, for LATER.

I was pleased with their cuteness and presentation.

I wonder if this two ingredient plan would work for other flavors - I purchased some chocolate fudge frosting and peanut butter chips to give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you have plans to make your own valentines? Or treats? I'd love to know what you did. Best wishes for the weekend. We have playgroup and a birthday party on Saturday, then of course working on my class stuff. I hope your weekend is a good one. 

See you soon.

Valentine Crafts for Toddlers: Love Bugs

I found tons of great craft ideas for toddlers on that site I shared with you yesterday. Also on that site, I found this idea and just modified it a bit based on the supplies I could find and my own preferences. This one involves the toddler, but also requires a bit of the adult. I didn't mind - I had fun making them. I've found my inner craftie all of a sudden, and here's what she did, having fun with her boy:

Here are the supplies, in no particular order.

The part for LM - creating "bugs" with his thumbprint.

And yes, because I have no smock, I made him do it in his diaper.

I hope one day he still loves me. 

Once we got going, he really got into it.

Not that you could tell from his gaze in this photo...

We decided to go ahead and stamp all the cards that came in the package.

Step two - after the paint dries, and you let the boy put on clothes.

You glue goggly eyes to the thumbprints.

To bring them to life, shall we say.

I did most of the gluing of the eyes - they are very small. But, LM had his own stash of supplies and played along with me. He loves it when we're doing projects of any kind. For instance, Daddy went to change a lightbulb the other day. Man oh man, he would not relent until he could get on a stool, right next to Daddy, and do whatever it was he thought Daddy was doing. He's a big boy, don't ya know.

96% received two eyes.

A couple, however, really appeared to be on their side, so one eye was sufficient.

Next, the bugs needed antennae and legs.

And they also needed a goofy saying.

You know, to make them REAL Valentines.

Then I poked holes in the cards, attached them to red cards behind,

 and threaded the ribbon through.

Voila! Cute buggy greetings!

Lather, rinse, repeat until all assemblage is complete.

Of course, it always goes smoother with cute help.

I added one more step to our Valentines...

...at least on most of them.

I took photos of LM in a red shirt and printed them for the inside of the card. Only I didn't make enough prints because I can't count, so some of them went sans photo. Getting a decent photo was a whole other story. Poor S was jumping around like a wild man to get a good shot. LM just stared at him like he was crazy. Probably because he was acting crazy, but never mind. We finally got this one:

OK, good enough.

Print. Only forget you need more.

Use some glue and stick that puppy inside the card.

Now, it's REALLY done.

Oh, I cannot tell you how much fun these cards were! I think LM had fun with the project too, even though I had to help finish them. We had fun together, which is special enough. I wonder what year I'll be like, "OMG, another $%#^@ Valentine's card? Geesh". Well, not this year sister. It was fun.

Tomorrow I'll share with you a little Valentine treat we attached to these little cards for some of the locals. 

See you soon.

Cloud Dough

So, there are endless opportunities on Pinterest. But, at least for me what happens is I pin a bunch of stuff and then hardly ever get around to DOING them. An exception to this would be our little experiment with cloud dough. I found it on Pinterest - there are a million links - I followed one of those worm holes to learn about cloud dough.

It's a mixture of flour and baby oil. It is a little like sand, but also sort of clumpy and sticky. I made 1/8th of the recipe, because we were just trying it out and I didn't figure we needed eight cups worth of it. I put it in a disposable casserole dish and we took it to the front yard to have fun.

For a brief period of time, the boy actually played with the cars I put in the cloud dough, as I sort of imagined he would. Then he decided it was more fun to pick up the dough and throw it out of the pan. 

And it was at that point that I was really glad I decided to do this in the front yard. No mess to clean up! It just got dispersed in the grass!

A bit blurry, but I was trying to get the clenched fist full of cloud dough!

Turns out - no surprise really - sifting through the dough and throwing it is more fun than cars.

Which we repeated until it was all pretty much out of the pan.

Where we played with it in the grass!

And put the pan on our head!

Turns out, cloud dough can REALLY cake on a pair of jeans.

It was a fun activity.

So fun, we had to go tell Dad.

Then we went to get cleaned up.

So, cloud dough, I would say, was a hit as a Saturday craft activity. It had a sensory element to it, and it was also fun for some benign destruction, shall we say. We'll make it again sometime.

See you soon.