Washi Tape Heart Craft

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Kids of all ages will enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day with this gorgeous Washi Tape Heart Craft. This craft is colorful, simple, and perfect for school or home.

Washi Tape Heart Craft

If your kids are anything like mine, they adore tape. And when I say adore, I mean ADORE! My youngest son is always asking for tape. So when I invited him to come to the craft table to make a Washi Tape Heart Craft, he was there in seconds!

This beautiful, vibrant craft is easy, fun, and inexpensive. I buy washi tape in bulk (look for boxed sets) from the craft store with a 40% of 50% off coupon. I love the patterns, colors, and how easy it is for kids to use.

To make this craft you will need:

• washi tape
• white paper hearts (save time by using precut hearts from the craft store)
• single hole punch
• string

After gathering supplies, invite kids to begin placing strips of tape on their hearts. If they have trouble with this step, you could simply pull strips for them and place them on waxed paper.

Excess tape can simply be tucked around the heart or if your child is practicing scissor skills, invite them to cut it off.

Place the tape in straight lines or zig zag lines.

Use a single hole punch to create a hole in the corner of the hearts, then pull a colorful piece of string or yarn through the holes and tie off.

Hang the hearts in the window, on doors, or on small hooks. They are a fun, simple, decoration for Valentine’s Day! Or, invite children to write a Valentine’s Day message on the back for a beloved teacher, friend, or grandparent.

More Heart Crafts for Kids

Click the images below to view more easy heart crafts for kids!

Rainbow Heart Suncatchers

Painted Foil Hearts

Simple Love Bug Valentine

The post Washi Tape Heart Craft appeared first on Kids Activities Blog.

10 Kitchen Cleaning Hacks

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These kitchen cleaning hacks are hopefully going to make your cleaning time just a little shorter.

We all need to do a deep cleaning now and then, but adding in a cleaning hack is a fun way to make it a little more fun!

Cleaning Tips for Your Kitchen

This post contains affiliate/distributor links that support Kids Activities Blog.

1- Lets start  with something as simple as a cutting board.    If you have a wooden cutting board, you can clean it up with a lemon!  Just slice a lemon in half and set it aside.   Pour a lot of salt onto your cutting board and now use the lemon just like it is a washcloth- scrub your cutting board using the lemon.   Lastly, scrape off all of the salt and lemon.  Rinse it with water.

2- If you have food caked on the microwave (food tends to explode in the microwave, doesn’t it?), you can remove it easily with just three ingredients:  water, lemon essential oil, sponge.    The best part is that it is all-natural!

Place a wet sponge inside of your microwave, spray the inside with water mixed with essential oils and microwave for two minutes.  Once the sponge is no longer hot, use it to wipe the inside of the microwave.  That’s it!

3.  The Vspot  Blog  suggests cleaning your stovetop  burners with ammonia: Put the burners in a plastic ziploc, add 1/4 cup of ammonia then seal your bag shut.  Put the bag on a baking sheet (you don’t want the ammonia to run out and get on anything) and place it outside for the night.   The burners will be exposed to the fumes- they do not need to soak in it.  In the morning, still outside, open the bag and wipe them with a sponge.   You could also bring them inside and place them in soapy water for a minute.
PS- Never  ever  add bleach to this ammonia!  It will create fumes that are toxic.

4- To clean out your dishwasher, use vinegar as a kitchen cleaner.    To help remove the film left over from your dishwasher soap you can fill your rinse dispenser with vinegar and your dishes will come out squeaky clean.

5- Use Press n’ Seal wrap to keep your refrigerator clean.  Just lay it down on each shelf and when a spill occurs, you just remove the wrap and start over again!

7.   Mom4Real suggests using a lemon, cut in half and dipped in salt, to clean your sink and remove stains around the sink.

8.  If your  have grease on your stove or the hood of the oven, you can get rid of it with a simple little  little trick: Put a  couple drops of mineral oil on a paper towel. Wipe the paper towel over the dirty surface, and watch the gunk come right off.  (The Manly HouseKeeper suggests using Mineral oil, because it keeps it clean longer than Vegetable oil)

9. Give your kids some socks (put some on yourself, too) and start sock-mopping the kitchen floors!   This is such a fun little bonding activity that just happens to clean the kitchen, too!

10.  Make your own kitchen cleaner for your countertops and kitchen table.    It only takes two ingredients.  Just combine a 1/2 cup of vinegar and 1/2 cup of water in a spray bottle and you are set!

The Essential Oils We Use & Love

We have something special for you.  A collection of our favorite essential oils at unbeatable prices.  While quantities last, we are featuring our Good Night Deal…

It is a favorite of ours.  A 15 ml bottle of Lavender and an Essentials Diffuser – what a great combination for an amazzzzzzing price while supplies last.

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{Valentines Day Dessert} Smores Recipe

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This Valentines Day Dessert: Smores Recipe is so easy to make and tastes super yummy too! Kids will love helping you make this fun and simple Valentines Day treat. It makes enough that you can give it away to friends or take it to a Valentines party. Of course, it’s a great Valentines Day dessert for that special someone also. This treat makes such a great Valentines Bark recipe!

If you’re looking for a Valentines Day treat without chocolate, then you’ll want try these Valentines Fruity Pebbles Treats. You could also try these Camp Fire Cones in the backyard for Valentines. We love the strawberries!

Two things this momma loves: Cooking with my kiddos and Any combination of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate. While you won’t find me camping much during the winter, I have to use a little creativity to get my Smore’s fix.  My original go-to was a smores topping on my brownies, but while I was making cracker candy this holiday season I thought, why not try this with my beloved smores?  It was a HIT! Here’s how to make this Valentines Day Dessert–Smores Recipe:

Valentines Day Dessert: Smores Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 sleeves of graham crackers, broken into halves and quarters
• 3/4 cup of butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 to 4 cups mini marshmallows
• 4 full-sized Hershey Bars or 2 giant Hershey Bars
• Valentine’s M&Ms

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 15 x 10 x 1 inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper and top with broken graham crackers. Cover pan completely.

Next, in a small saucepan, slowly melt the butter completely over low heat.

Then add the brown sugar all at once and stir until smooth and melted. Allow the mixture to boil while stirring constantly for about 2 minutes or until it begins to thicken.

Remove butter mixture from heat and evenly pour over the top of the graham crackers. Use a spatula to smooth mixture over evenly and place into the oven for 5 minutes.

Take the pan out of the oven and immediately sprinkle small squares of chocolate, marshmallows, and Valentines M&Ms all over the top. This is where my little one liked to help me!

Place the pan back into the oven for 2-4 minutes, or until you notice the marshmallows start to puff up. Allow the pan to cool fully before breaking up into squares.

There are so many great uses for this easy recipe – a fun Valentine’s treat for Daddy, Grandparents, Neighbors, and Teachers! Enjoy!

More Kids Activities

What is your favorite Valentines Day dessert?  This smores recipe looks delicious.  But we have some other great kids activities and dessert recipes you might want to try with your children:

• (Sweet Treat} Chocolate Factory
• Make Smores {in a solar oven!}
• Quick and Easy Baking with 3,2,1 Cake

Want more Valentines Day ideas? Like our Facebook page for more yummy recipes!

The post {Valentines Day Dessert} Smores Recipe appeared first on Kids Activities Blog.

Magic Homemade Puffy Paint to Make a Snowman

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Click here to read Magic Homemade Puffy Paint to Make a Snowman on Hands On As We Grow

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This is a last-minute winter craft I did with my 4-year old, Louis.

We’ve been browsing Hands On As We Grow lately, and something somewhere sparked the idea to paint a snowman. I’m not even sure what that would have been since we don’t have any painted snowmen on here yet. But we do have lots of winter crafts for toddlers!

Anyway, it sparked the idea to create white homemade puffy paint for the snowman. I looked up some recipes, but guess what… I didn’t have what they needed.

So I threw together some flour and salt and added just enough water to make it like mashed banana consistency.

Our craft paint (affiliate link) was already out, so I also squirted in a dab of white paint. But I didn’t have much, so that didn’t affect the mixtures much at all.

If I had more white paint, I would add more next time, since the flour has a brown hue to it.

Love painting? Here are 50 different ways to explore with paint!

Then I gave it to Louis to paint!

(Just wait… the puffy part comes in a bit.)

First, I made a snowman to show him how to make the circles and fill each one in.

Also, this homemade puffy paint needs to be dabbed on more than spread around. It needs to be thick to work well!

Once the snowman was created, Louis stuck it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then…

… oh the excitement! How did it turn out?!

We took it out and it was puffed up!

If we had used a self-rising flour, it would have been even puffier. But this has a cool effect and the paint now felt rubbery.

Also, the thicker we painted, the puffier it got!

Then it was time to add details to our homemade puffy paint snowman!

We decided to just use markers instead of paint, but either would work.

We’ve been grabbing our markers a lot lately. We bought this 100-pack of markers (affiliate link) around Christmas-time and has been used almost daily since.

Here are 30 fine motor activities for toddlers to help with their drawing skills!

Marker tip: Every time we get them out, I ask my boys what the rule is for markers. They are 1) to only get one out at a time, 2) to put the lid back on and 3) to put it back in the box where you got it.

I cannot tell you how many boxes of markers we’ve been through in this house, rules needed to be enforced!

I had fun decorating my own snowman made with our simple homemade puffy paint alongside Louis.

The puffy paint has a real rubbery textures that makes it hard to put on good details. Even Louis noticed the texture which was a cool sensory-learning bonus.

He had a lot of fun adding in his snowman details. He’s pretty proud of the legs he put on it, and went on to add them onto my snowman as well.

Do your kids love experimenting with new ways to paint?

Magic Homemade Puffy Paint to Make a Snowman

Hands On As We Grow http://ift.tt/2kRyLqU

Click here to read Magic Homemade Puffy Paint to Make a Snowman on Hands On As We Grow

---

This is a last-minute winter craft I did with my 4-year old, Louis.

We’ve been browsing Hands On As We Grow lately, and something somewhere sparked the idea to paint a snowman. I’m not even sure what that would have been since we don’t have any painted snowmen on here yet. But we do have lots of winter crafts for toddlers!

Anyway, it sparked the idea to create white homemade puffy paint for the snowman. I looked up some recipes, but guess what… I didn’t have what they needed.

So I threw together some flour and salt and added just enough water to make it like mashed banana consistency.

Our craft paint (affiliate link) was already out, so I also squirted in a dab of white paint. But I didn’t have much, so that didn’t affect the mixtures much at all.

If I had more white paint, I would add more next time, since the flour has a brown hue to it.

Love painting? Here are 50 different ways to explore with paint!

Then I gave it to Louis to paint!

(Just wait… the puffy part comes in a bit.)

First, I made a snowman to show him how to make the circles and fill each one in.

Also, this homemade puffy paint needs to be dabbed on more than spread around. It needs to be thick to work well!

Once the snowman was created, Louis stuck it in the microwave for 30 seconds and then…

… oh the excitement! How did it turn out?!

We took it out and it was puffed up!

If we had used a self-rising flour, it would have been even puffier. But this has a cool effect and the paint now felt rubbery.

Also, the thicker we painted, the puffier it got!

Then it was time to add details to our homemade puffy paint snowman!

We decided to just use markers instead of paint, but either would work.

We’ve been grabbing our markers a lot lately. We bought this 100-pack of markers (affiliate link) around Christmas-time and has been used almost daily since.

Here are 30 fine motor activities for toddlers to help with their drawing skills!

Marker tip: Every time we get them out, I ask my boys what the rule is for markers. They are 1) to only get one out at a time, 2) to put the lid back on and 3) to put it back in the box where you got it.

I cannot tell you how many boxes of markers we’ve been through in this house, rules needed to be enforced!

I had fun decorating my own snowman made with our simple homemade puffy paint alongside Louis.

The puffy paint has a real rubbery textures that makes it hard to put on good details. Even Louis noticed the texture which was a cool sensory-learning bonus.

He had a lot of fun adding in his snowman details. He’s pretty proud of the legs he put on it, and went on to add them onto my snowman as well.

Do your kids love experimenting with new ways to paint?

Managing A House With Kids

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Are you managing a house with kids?  Or are you wondering how to keep up with the house while raising a family?  We get that question A LOT.

It can seem almost impossible to keep a clean home while you have young children at home.  It may seem like a far-off dream to have an organized home, whether you are home or working outside of the home.

Between the laundry, meals, homework, sports, playdates and general cleaning… well, it really doesn’t leave a lot of time.  So what can you do to make it happen in your home?  How can you keep up with the house while raising a family?   Here are some suggestions to get you started…

(1) Start meal planning for a week at a time, purchase the groceries ahead of time so you are all prepared and post the schedule in your home.

(2) Use a couple hours on the weekend to prepare some freezer meals for the week ahead.  We love to order our groceries online (to Harris Teeter or Walmart) and then prep them all on Sunday afternoon.

(3) Divide up the basic daily chores between you and your husband. Then on the weekends take two hours to do a quick clean of the house as a family.   It makes a huge difference.  We designate Sunday (right after church) to a “cleaning hour”.  With 6 people in our family, we can get this done rather quickly if we all chip in.

(4) Create a chore chart that you keep in a central location so everyone knows what is expected. Here are a few to get you started…

(5) Use a crockpot for easy meals. Dinner can be cooking while you are at work!  I love easy crockpot meals like this 2 ingredient crockpot meal. You prep it at night or when you wake up and you’re done!

(6) Accept that some things will have to be let go. You cannot do everything and have to have grace with yourself and your family.

(7) Keep a stash of easy prep meals such as frozen pizza, sandwich and salad supplies, soups on hand for evenings where you are extra tired.   We like to keep chicken patties at home- the kids love them and we pair them with a fruit salad, yogurt and carrots.  Everyone is happy.

(8) Create landing zones for items such as backpacks, keys, purses, school papers, etc. This will eliminate all the extra clutter that can occur.

(9) Treat yourself to a cleaning lady once or twice a month to come in and deep clean your home.   Try to decide if it is worth the money to let someone else do it & free up that time for you to just be with your family.

(10) Join with friends in a freezer meal swap. Each of you makes a separate amount of meals and then swap! Instantly, you have a good selection of easy dinners.
For example:  Everyone makes 7 crock-pot meals.  They bag them each into freezer bags.  Then, that night, everyone gathers at a meeting place and exchanges the meals.  You walk away with 7 different meals: one for each night of the week.  (Decide ahead of time what each person makes by organizing a pinterest board of easy crock-pot meals).

If you are ready to organize your home right now, try this 7-day declutter & organizing course.  We love it.  It walks you through each room in your home & you do it with an online ‘support group’ to encourage one another the whole time.

How do you manage things as a busy mom?  Let us know on our Facebook page, where we share pictures daily.

The post Managing A House With Kids appeared first on Kids Activities Blog.

5 Course Dinner for a Mid-Week Slump

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Do you ever get in a dinner rut? It can be hard to keep your dinners fresh every night. Today on Family Food Live, a 5 Course Dinner for a Mid-Week Slump!

Join us for Family Food Live at 11 am CST/12 Noon EST every Wednesday and Friday!  Today I’ll be live on the Burnt Macaroni Facebook page. But make sure you like both the Burnt Macaroni Facebook page and the Quirky Momma Facebook page now so you never miss an episode!

If you missed the last Family Food Live, here’s a look

Here’s a look at today’s recipes!

Chicken Cutlets

These Chicken Cutlets are one of our go-to meals during the week! It always makes for an easy, quick dinner when you are in a slump!

Greek Salad

Shopping List:

For the salad

• 1 head Romaine Lettuce, cut into bite size pieces
• 1 cup Calamata Olives
• 1/2 Cucumber, sliced into fourths
• 1 cup Cherry Tomatoes
• 1/2 Red Onion cut into slices
• Feta Cheese, crumbled

For the dressing

• 6 tablespoons Lemon Juice
• 1 cup Olive Oil
• 2 teaspoon Fresh Oregano, minced
• 2 cloves Garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons Salt
• Pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a mason jar and shake
• Combine all of the salad ingredients in a bowl and mix
• Add dressing to salad

Mushroom Risotto

Mushroom Risotto is the perfect side dish for the Chicken Cutlet. This risotto can also be a self-contained meal. You will love it.

Veggie Kabob

Shopping List:

• White Mushrooms
• Red Onion, cut into quarters
• Zucchini, sliced
• Olive Oil
• Greek Seasoning

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350°
• Using a skewer, layer the cut veggies
• Place on cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil
• Season with greek seasoning
• Cook for 15-20 minutes or until veggies are soft

Chocolate Fondue

Shopping List:

• 6 oz. Chocolate semisweet chips or bittersweet chocolate wafers
• 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
• Strawberries
• Sponge Cake or Angel Food Cake, cut into cubes

Instructions:

• In a large mixing cup, combine chocolate and heavy cream and microwave for 1-2 minutes (check after 1 minute to see if it’s a liquid)
• Pour into serving bowl
• Using skewers, dip strawberries or cake into chocolate and enjoy

Join Family Food Live with Holly & Chris every Wednesday and Friday at Noon CST on either the Quirky Momma Facebook page or the Burnt Macaroni Facebook page!
We are also so excited to share our first Family Food Live Apron with you.  Be the first to pick one up and start cooking with us! Just click buy now below!

Here are a few of our favorite products from Family Food Live (affiliate links)

• Fresh Baby Ice Cube Trays with lids
• Cuisinart Food Processor
• The I Heart Naptime Cookbook by Jamielyn Nye
• Giant Popcorn bowl
• Individual Popcorn bowls
• VillaWare Uno Classic Waffle Maker
• VillaWare Farmyard Waffle Maker
• Taco Holder
• Pyrex Baking Dishes
• Hand Blender
• Pizza Peel
• Pizza Wheel (cutter)
• Pizza Stone
• Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Double Burner Reversible Grill/Griddle
• Cuisinart Chef's Classic Stainless 5-1/2-Quart Saute Pan with Helper Handle and Cover
• BPA free lunch containers
• Egg Rite Egg Timer
• Fit and Fresh container
• One Touch Electric Bottle Opener
• Half Pint Wide Mouth Mason Jars
• Ninja Professional Blender
• Zoku Quick Pop Maker
• Williams-Sonoma Open Kitchen Half Apron in Red or Blue
• Plano Half-Size Stowaway with Adjustable Dividers - for road trip snacks
• Curious Chef 3-Piece Nylon Knife Set
• Cuisinart 2 Quart Ice Cream Maker
• Victorinox Fibrox Straight Edge Chef's Knife, 8-Inch
• Lemon Squeezer
• Mason Jars
• Crockpot
• Apple Corer
• Popcorn Bowl
• MaxiMatic double burner hot plate
• Glass Egg carton
• Black & Decker 4 slice toaster
• Hamilton Beach Hand Mixer
• Cuisinart 8-cup Food Processor
• Meat Mallet
• Ice Cream or Cookie Scooper
• Norpro Butter Keeper
• Norpro Butter Keeper
• 3-Piece Veggie Peeler
• Garlic Press

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