Stencil a St. Patrick's day shirt (using freezer paper)

Can I admit something to you?

I'm not Irish.  *Gasp*  I know!  How surprising!

I've never felt the need to celebrate St. Patrick's day.  But, strangely... now that I'm a mom I feel the need to celebrate this and every holiday with Chuck.  President's day? St. Patrick's day?  Passover?  Bring them all on.  I relish the thought of dressing him up in holiday themed gear.

And since St. Paddy's day is just around the corner, what better way to celebrate than dress him in green. So last night I donned my crafting hat and made this "lucky charm" shirt for Chuck to wear.

Not too shabby, right?  It was my first time trying out the freezer paper stenciling technique.  Isn't it surprising how nice and crisp the lines turned out?  Wow.  This is definitely a technique that I'll use in the future.

Make your own rainbow flowers

Last weekend, I made these rainbow flowers.

Aren't they purty?

Wanna bring some rainbow cheer into your life? 

They're easy to make.  Plus, you get to see science at work.

Fun with food coloring, soap, and milk

We've now had 2 days of cold and wet weather.  Baby Chuck and I try to go out in the mornings, but we usually stay at home in the afternoons because parking spots are so difficult to find.  (Curse you, parallel parking!)

So... what's a cooped up mama and 16 month old baby to do?

Well, yesterday we tried another food coloring activity.  This time we found Steve Spangler's amazing science page.  He had a demonstration that involved food coloring, dish detergent, and milk.   Look what we were able to do:

Ooh.  Psychedelic!

Materials:
- milk  (we used whole... but I bet you could use other types of milk... but the intensity may differ...)
- bowl / container
- food coloring
- dish soap
- cotton swab

DIY- Rainbow rice krispies

Rice krispy treats are my new favorite dessert.  They're perfect for satisfying my sweet tooth, super easy to make, and they're wheat/soy/nut free!  Score!

This Sunday our church held it's monthly potluck and of course, I really wanted to bring them.  Since I already brought them to the previous month's potluck (I told you they were my favorite dessert), I figured I should probably shnazz them up.   That's when I thought to make some St. Patrick's day themed rice krispy treats.  Oooh.      

To make them, I tweaked the basic rice krispy recipe.  After melting the marshmallows, I divided the goo into 6 different containers.  Then, I quickly added food coloring into each of the containers (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.)  Hubby quickly followed behind and stirred the food coloring into the melted marshmallows while I added rice krispies into the mixture.

It was crazy.  I felt like Lucy, rushing to eat the chocolates off the conveyer belt.  Hubby was mixing, I was mixing, rice krispies were falling onto the floor, the marshmallows were hardening a little too quickly, and in the midst of it all we actually broke a spoon.

As each color finished, I quickly scooped the sticky mixture into one of four mini bread loaf pans that I previously buttered.  I added color on top of color and then got these:    

Ooooh.  Here I am slicing a colorful ricey log.

Rainbows for everyone!  (Note:  Pot of  gold not included.)

Looking back, I probably should have just made one color first, then made one layer of colorful rice krispies, and then moved onto each of the following colors.  The layers would have been neater and things wouldn't have gotten so out of hand.  Oh well, there's always next time!

Special thanks to hubby for being a good sous chef.


To see my Academy Awards rice krispy treats, click here.
To see my Peep rice krispy treat, click here