Coffee Cup Angel

I know I've been a bit MIA lately. Sorry. I spent the day working on my resume. I am going to apply for a part time job at Hazel's school. We also have a bunch of family activities planned the next week or so, therefore I may be MIA a bit more. 

So I saw this great idea on Our Life in a Click using Starbucks cups. Now I have to admit I'm addicted to chai lattes and I love Starbucks, so we have a few cups floating around. In fact when Hazel first started speaking she called Starbucks "Chai". She also has several empty cups floating around so she can pretend to drink a chai as well. Therefore, this craft was right up our alley.

I made a few changes. I did not have the wooden discs so I used the plastic cover. I cut the circle and added the face. To make it stand I used one of the green drink sticks they now have so your drink does not spill in the car. I poked it through the bottom of the cup and put glue on it and around it and glued the cover circle on it. I blocked it in the back with some yarn hair. Then I used a glittery pipe cleaner for the halo.

I honestly did this craft with Hazel in about 10 minutes. Tomorrow we are going to use different size cups to make an angel family. I'm also thinking maybe a Christmas tree. I have an idea in my head. I'll share it tomorrow if we do it. Have you done any recycled crafts lately? Any other creative ideas for using your coffee cups and its various parts?

National Hispanic Heritage Month Begins Saturday

Did you know that National Hispanic Heritage Month begins Saturday? It runs from September 15 to October 15th. President Lyndon Johnson put into place National Hispanic Heritage Week and President Ronald Reagan expanded it to a month. (Source) My friend, Daria, reminded me and asked if I would like to make some of her musical instruments in honor of the month. I, of course, jumped on it. If you have not already checked out Daria's webpage you should, but especially check out her Monthly Song Page so you can enter her great giveaways for a pair of handmade maracas and/or a basket of castanets. Everything we made today came from her tutorials which you can find links to on her Monthly Song Page. Everything was made with recycled ingredients for the most part or at least things we had hanging around the house.

Hazel had a great time making the instruments, decorating them and playing with them! The pictures above are of her making and decorating them. We will start with the most well known instrument we made--maracas! Daria does a great job of explaining maracas including a bit of history. We used a small water bottle (we only had one in our recycling bin), two empty bubble containers (with the wands inside still), toilet paper rolls, beads, and electrical tape (red) and then Hazel decorated them with paint. Hazel loved putting the beads into the different containers. I taped the toilet paper rolls to the containers and then she decorated away. We actually have some maracas from the store so I included a picture of them as well so you could see the similarities and differences!

Next we made the guiro. This is actually easy to make and is somewhat similar to the maracas. We used an empty water bottle with ridges. We put some beads in it as well. Hazel also painted it a bit, but I don't recommend this since the paint flaked off immediately when we played it. Again, Daria does a good job explaining the guiro and a bit of it history. I think this is my favorite one we made!

The last instrument me made today is a cajita. Cajita means little box. It literally is a small box with an attached lid. To play it you hit it with a wooden stick on the inside, outside, wherever. I had picked up a couple of wooden boxes on clearance at the Christmas Tree Shop when we visited my parents last week. (Daria suggests a cigar box.) I pulled out the smallest one and gave it to Hazel. She added some paint so she could add her own touch (or at least that is the reason she told me she wanted to paint it). Then she played it with a pencil as well. Again, Daria does a great job explaining about a cajita, so please check out what she says.

After playing it a couple of times she decided she wanted to use the box for Ducky's diaper cream. She thought it was the perfect size for it. Oh, well. 

Since the cajita is from Peru, I thought I would share a children's book for you about life in Peru, Tonight Is Carnaval by Arthur Dorros. All of the illustrations are pictures of arpilleras sewn by the Club de Madras Virgen del Carmen of Lima, Peru. They are beautiful!!

The story is told by a young boy about his family getting ready for the Carnaval, which is three days away. First the work must be done. He goes into details about the work including farming, taking care of the llamas, sheering the alpacas and turning it into yarn and then taking their potatoes to the market in the village. After the market the Carnaval will begin. If you do not know, Carnaval is a celebration just before Lent. In the Andes it is celebrated for three days and nights with music (from a local band which the story teller gets to play in this year), dancing and feasting. 

Stay tune for more Hispanic Heritage Sharing the next month!! Next week Monday will not be multicultural due to the Virtual Book Club for Kids, but I will share something with you later in the week.

Readathon Week #5--Earth and Being Green

For this week's theme, MemeTales Readathon has chosen Green/Earth. There are two free books along this theme. Through the five weeks over 5500 meals have been donated to FoodForEducation.org. Has your child(ren) joined yet to donate another meal?

The books this week are Let's Go Chipper! Into the Great Outdoors published by Let's Go Chipper and What Does It Mean To Be Green? by Rana Di Orio. Let's Go Chipper! Into the Great Outdoors is about a suburban squirrel going on a camping trip and meeting all sorts of new friends there. The purpose of the book is to remind children to get outside and discover the world even in your own backyard.

Baking, Crafting, and Relaxing

Wow, I'm so excited. My followers moved to over 100 yesterday. Thank you!! I feel so honored especially since most of my followers are not my family and friends I met elsewhere--not from Crafty Moms Share. Also we have 90+ posts shared at Sharing Saturday. It is still open, so please go check it out and share something with us. I am always amazed at everything and love to see what wonderful things people are up to. I often try some of them with Hazel as well.

So this weekend, we baked some muffins. We made Banana Blueberry Muffins since we had some overripe bananas to use up. Hazel is a great banana masher.

She also did most of the mixing and helped scoop them into the muffin tins.

Our recipe is pretty low fat and healthy!!

Banana Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup oat bran or oatmeal
1/4 cup ground flax seed meal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup non-fat milk
1 cup plain fat-free yogurt (I use Greek so it has extra protein)
1 egg
2-3 over ripe bananas, mashed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a muffin pan with foil liners or spray with non-stick spray. (The muffins are moist and will stick to paper liners.)

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

In large bowl beat egg and then add milk, yogurt, bananas and oil and mix. Then add dry ingredients and mix well. Then add blueberries and stir.

Scoop into the prepared muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes and then cool on rack for 10 minutes before eating.
Makes about 18 muffins.

We also did a craft of sorts. I had been saving a Tropicana juice bottle. I love the shape and thought it would be a fun playhouse for some of Hazel's dolls. I asked Steve to cut a door in it. Then we glued some double folded bias tape around the cut so there wouldn't be any sharp edges. Then we moved Hazel's Caillou figures into it. I think Hazel and I may decorate it more, but it at least gave her a playhouse for the figures.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I know I'm excited to have my quilt done and have been working on Hazel's. And have been enjoying some family time.