Heart Pizza

Thursday night before I left for Colorado the kids and I made a homemade pizza.  Ella likes to put on the pepperoni.  In the spirit of Valentines Day I made it into a heart shape.  She just loved that!  It was a huge hit!!

Peanut Blossom Cookies with Reese's PB Hearts

Rather than make a craft today my daughter and I made cookies.  I saw Reese's Peanut Butter Hearts at Target the other day and thought they'd be yummy on a cookie.  Oh. My. Gosh.  They are delicious!  These might be one of my favorite cookies.  Ever.  And I'm not really even a Reese's fan.  You have to try these.  You won't be sorry.  You can use a regular 'ole Hershey Kiss or any type of chocolate will work.  Be creative!  Here is the recipe I used that I found on the back of a Hershey's cookbook.

1 (8 oz) bag of Kisses (or in this case Reese's PB Hearts)
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
sugar

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Remove wrappers from chocolates.  2.  Beat shortening and peanut butter in a large bowl until well blended.  Add 1/3 cup sugar and brown sugar; beat until light and fluffy.  Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well.  Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.  3.  Shape dough into 1-inch balls.  Roll in sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.  Immediately press a Kiss (or your preference of chocolate) into center of cookie; cookie will crack around edges.  Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.  Cool completely.

I like to leave the cookies on the cookie sheet and put them directly into the fridge or freezer after placing the chocolate on so the chocolate sets.  Otherwise you may end up with a melted chocolate blob on top of your cookies.

Eat one while they're nice and warm but be warned you probably won't be able to eat just one.  Yummy!!

Valentine Mailbox

In February's issue of Family Fun there's a craft under "Everyday Fun" called "Chews a Card".  They make Valentine mailboxes using empty Kleenex boxes.  Their version of mailboxes are an alien and cat, hence the "chews" in the title.  Ella didn't want to make an animal but we used the same concept and she created her own Valentine mailbox.  This was not difficult as long as I was cutting the larger strips of paper for her.  She did most of the work.

Supplies

Ready for all those Valentines! 

Handprint Hearts

I saw this cute Valentine idea over on The Idea Room for Handprint Valentines.   We decided to make one Valentine with both of the kids handprints since the little guy is only 1 and can't write yet.  Both kids really enjoyed this and much to my surprise it wasn't too messy (I'm not into big messy crafts).  We headed over to Hobby Lobby to pick up some paint.  Note to self: Poster Paint stampers don't work on hands because it dries too fast!  Back-up was washable red paint and acrylic pink paint.  These worked like a charm.

We made five: Daddy, grandparents and daughter requested to send one to her Godmother

The finished cards signed by the four year old!

Rodeo Pancakes

Growing up in San Antonio I went to the rodeo just about every year around this time of the year.  Well, maybe not the actual rodeo where the cowboys are riding bulls and competing but I remember walking around the fairgrounds and the stockyards looking at the animals.  Sometimes we got to go to the actual rodeo and go to a concert, like Ricky Van Shelton or Alan Jackson or Reba, to name a few (I realize I just let some of you know how old I might be).  Then in high school for at least one year the dance and drill team got to be escorts and seat everyone at the rodeo so we got to see quite a few shows that year (one being Linda Ronsdant, not my fave).  I'm pretty sure that ended when Ms. Cantu left Madison.  I digress, I've been watching a lot of my San Antonio peeps (I moved after college) update their Facebook statuses with postings about the rodeo and this year I actually miss it.  This morning I started to think "How can I teach my kids a little about the rodeo?"  Ah ha!  I'll make pancakes and use the cowboy cookie cutters!  I was so excited, much more than my kiddos.  I told my four year old all about the rodeo and compared it to the State Fair, which is probably better to some but it's bigger and more crowded (but I do love it).  I think my four year would LOVE the rodeo all because of her current favorite shoes...cowgirl boots!  Don't be confused, they're not cowboy boots because she's a GIRL and they're white and PINK.  Back to the pancakes...I just used my regular stand-by Aunt Jemima whole wheat mix, warmed my pan, sprayed the pan and cookie cutters (have to be metal) with PAM, placed the cutters on the pan and filled with 1/4 cup of batter.  After they started to bubble I flipped the whole thing including the cutter over and then after they were finished I used an oven mitt to remove from pan and gently pushed the pancake out with a fork.  My kiddos prefer whipped cream rather than syrup so I put a little on each pancake and they were delish!

Cowboy pancake

Cowboy hat pancake

Valentine Centerpiece

If you're looking for a quick and easy Valentine decoration for your home here is one!  All you need is a hurricane candle holder or any candle holder will do, a candle and a bag of conversation hearts.  Pour the bag into your hurricane glass and then place your candle in the hearts and there you go.  Normally I use a white candle but I could only find a red one so we're using red this year. :)  I have two small candle holders that are also hurricane glass and was going to fill them as well but when I got to the checkout counter I noticed the second bag had a hole and they were spilling out.  I keep forgetting to buy another.  Next year!

Contact

If you have any suggestions or questions please send them to:
mykindofcrafts@gmail.com

Valentine Kid Cards

I don't know about you but some of the store bought Valentines can be really cheesy.  Don't get me wrong, I've purchased them in the past and I'm sure I will purchase them again in the future.  However, I stumbled across the cutest Valentines on a designer, Carina Gardner's, blog and she provides a free download here or for last year's download click here.  My daughter wrote a few out tonight to give to some friends tomorrow for a playdate.

We attached ours to Skittles!

A couple days ago we made Carina's cards from last year and after we cut out the cards we glued them to pink construction paper and then attached our candy.  I didn't take any photos but that turned out really cute.  We will do that again for her class party next week except leave off the candy since they can't bring any to school. :(

Valentine Popcorn

I saw this yummy looking White Chocolate Peppermint Popcorn here.  I love The Idea Room's blog.  If you haven't been there you should.  I don't know about you but I've had a bowl in the pantry of leftover mini candy canes from Christmas waiting for something fun to happen to them!

Here's what you need to get started:
8-10 cups popcorn
8 oz white chocolate (chips or bark)
1 tsp Peppermint extract
*1.5 cups peppermint, finely chopped
chocolate chips

*I used 1.25 cups and had way too much.  1 cup would have been enough for us.

First, you need to make 8-10 cups of popcorn and put in a big bowl.  We cheated and made two bags of microwavable popcorn since we don't have a real popcorn maker.  I measured out 10 cups and took out the leftover kernels.  Next, melt 8 oz of white chocolate.  We used two 4 oz bars of Nestle white chocolate baking bars and melted them in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring between.  Then, added a capful of peppermint extract.  Next, pour the white chocolate over the popcorn and combine it well so all popcorn is covered.  Sprinkle the finely chopped peppermint to the popcorn and cover well.  Lay the popcorn out on a baking sheet covered with wax paper to dry.  While it's drying melt some chocolate chips in the microwave.  We used 1 cup and had some leftover so we poured it over our remaining plain popcorn.  Delish!  Mine sort of looks like small clumps on the popcorn but you can probably melt it longer or put it in a ziploc bag and cut the corner to squeeze the chocolate out the corner.

 

Before we added the chocolate

After we added the chocolate 

My daughter and I had so much fun making this treat.  It was absolutely divine.  We put it in baggies and attached a Valentine to each bag and off they went with me to bookclub!

Enjoy :)

Welcome to my new blog

This is my first post on my crafty blog!  I have another blog for my family and friends with pictures of my kiddos but I thought it would be fun to post the ideas I've been finding and creating with my kids from other wonderful blogs and websites out there in cyber world.  It can take a lot of effort to search and search for fun things to do with your kids.  I hope you'll find some new and creative things to do with them here!