Painting with Little Children

One of my biggest problems when painting with my children is the paints either spilling or getting mixed up.

We recently started using egg cartons to divide the paints up and it has been quite effective. I put a squirt of each colour in to the bottom of the cups and then the kids can use the paints. I make sure that there is a container of water. So far we have avoided mixing the colours up, and this is after the children had been painting for almost 40 minutes uninterrupted.

Hand Print Art

Time to make another set of canvas art. This time, since I found 4 small canvases in my cupboard, it is going to be 4 hand prints. One for each child.

We painted the canvases in 4 different colours and then used hands to put a print in the middle of it. All that is left is to sign a name down the bottom of each canvas and put a date on it. Maybe one day my children will look back at these prints and be able to compare how much they have changed/grown.

Magnetic Peg Planes

In our house our fridge is our noticeboard. We stick notes, invitations and artwork up on the fridge because this is the central location here. We all congregate around the kitchen while I am cooking. We come and go through the kitchen multiple times a day, so it is really the ideal place to display information. I finally decided to re-make our tacky magnets from our local MP.

We made some peg planes to stick on magnets and use to hold our artwork up in style. I did discover that my boys don't know what bi-planes are. We did have to go and visit the War Memorial to confirm that there really are planes with two main wings, one on top of the other.

Gingerbread houses 2012

This year we decided to change the recipe we used to make our gingerbread houses and make the gingerbread houses much smaller. We found that the bigger ones look prettier and can fit more decorations on them, but that the children just east all the lollies instead of eating the gingerbread. This recipe is one that the children like eating, so I was hopeful it would be more successful.

Ingredients:
125g margarine
1/2 cup of Caster Sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups of plain flour
3 teaspoons of ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon of bi-carb soda
1/4 cup of golden syrup warmed for 20 seconds in the microwave

-beat butter and sugar until creamy

-add egg yolk and mix thoroughly

- sift flour, ginger, pepper and bi-carb soda together and then add to the butter mixture along with the golden syrup. This should bring the dough together into a thick stick ball of dough

- knead dough on lightly floured surface and roll out to a 1/2cm thickness

-cut the house pattern out of the dough and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes 1 house and a few tiny biscuits to taste test.

I used the computer to make house shapes to print out so I could use them as templates for cutting out my gingerbread house pieces.

It is a good thing that royal icing can make up for our wonky house pieces!

The children had a lovely time decorating the houses and then eating them.

Biscuit Wreath

This year my oldest son wanted to take in a gift to share with all the teachers from his school and he wanted it to be something edible. While we were sitting in a waiting room at an appointment he found a picture of a biscuit wreath and decided that this was exactly what he wanted to make.

We made a butter biscuit recipe with white chocolate added to the mix for a richer biscuit. Once we cut out the biscuits we 'glued' them together into a wreath shape with melted chocolate. I thought this was easier than a royal icing alternative and the children could manage without my help.

White Chocolate Butter Biscuits

200 grams of butter

1 cup of caster sugar

1 egg

2 1/4 cups of plain flour

100 grams of grated white chocolate

Extra 150grams  white chocolate for joining the biscuits

Icing sugar for sifting over the finished wreath

Cream the butter and sugar then add the egg and mix well.

Slowly add the flour and grated chocolate to the mixture. 

Once the mixture comes together in a big lump put it in the fridge for half an hour.  

Roll the mixture out and cut out various sized stars, place on a baking tray and put in the oven at 180C conventional or 170C fan forced. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until they start to colour - these biscuits are not meant to be brown, so stay close to the oven when cooking as the chocolate in the mix ensures that they go from cooked to burnt in a few minutes!

Once the biscuits have cooled, melt the extra chocolate and use it to glue the stars in a wreath shape. Sift icing sugar over the top to finish.

Cold Banana Ice-Cream

I had a few bananas that were starting to get very ripe so I peeled them, broke them into pieces and froze them. All I had to do was wait for the perfect combination of a hot day, and a day when I remembered that I had these frozen gems all ready to make some mini 'ice-creams'. After the children had worn themselves out on the trampoline we enjoyed our home made ice-cream (I know it doesn't have any cream in it, but any other descriptive term doesn't encompass the creamy texture of the creation).

I put the frozen banana pieces into the blender and turned it on. I forgot to put my hand on the top and the lid came flying off. Our second attempt was more successful.

The bananas take around 5 minutes to blend properly in my blender. I had to stop blending a few times to scrape down the sides. Then we were able to see it happen...our banana lumpy mix turned from this mix here (see below)...

To this incredible looking soft serve banana ice-cream.

All there was left to do was put them into some tiny ice-cream cones.

This banana ice-cream mix does not refreeze very well without crystalising and becoming more like an ice-block rather than ice-cream, so I mostly just freeze 2 bananas at a time and that gives all of my children a lovely serve.

Stained Glass Window Paints

I have had a packet of window paints in the cupboard for a while. It seems like it is something that is too hard for the children to manage on their own without extensive assistance from me. I had a little more time than usual this week so thought I would give it a go. I traced the design from the book with the black paints and let it completely dry. Once it was dry then I let the children loose with the paints. My only stipulation was they could only use one paint at a time and needed to let it dry before moving on. Well, it is a good thing the paint dried very quickly or the first photo would have been as far as the picture developed.