2014 Pinterest Challenge - Veggie Tags

Well here we go again.  

We've planted our crop.  Will it do better than last year?  

In honor of all the planting we did this past weekend, this next craft is something useful to help organize my plants and herbs. 

My supplies: 

Wine corks, a Sharpie marker, skewers

Step 1: Push skewers through the wine corks

Step 2: Write the names of your veggies and herbs on the wine corks with the Sharpie 

Step 3: Place skewers next to/in front of plants!  

Here's a sampling of what our garden looks like this season with the veggie tags in place:

I'm not sure how long these will hold up in the rain and elements but they look cute for now! - says the village idiot  

2014 Pinterest Challenge - Not Your Momma's Soap

Soap isn't just for the bath - or so says Pinterest.  I read that if you microwave a bar of Ivory soap, it turns into moldable mush that you can play with.  

I had to try it with Little Lady.

My supplies:

Food coloring, cookie cutters, wax paper, Ivory soap, cup of water, bowl and spoon

Now my goal was to preform a bit of a science experiment with the Ivory soap in order that Little Lady could play with some different textures.  BUT, mid project, I thought why waste a perfectly good bar of soap...

This adventure led to a super fun time for Little Lady, and a fun craft afterwards!

Step 1: Unwrap Ivory soap from paper

Step 2: Place unwrapped soap on wax paper and place in microwave (I set the microwave for 3 minutes but it only needed about a minute and a half to grow pretty large).

The Ivory soap will start to grow into a giant Ivory soap cloud!

 Step 3: Place the Ivory cloud on a paper plate and play!

Little Lady went from what is this Mom?, to OHMYGOODNESSTHISISGREAT in about 1 minute

The craft begins when you are done playing!

Step 4: Place Ivory cloud into bowl, add a couple tablespoons of water, and stir until it is a thick paste

Step 5: optional - add food coloring 

Step 6: Smoosh soap into cookie cutter molds

(I think I added a little too much water because the soap was slightly too soft to properly mold but it worked anyways) 

Step 7: Wait a couple of hours and you will have bars of soap to use for play or bath time! (I put the molds into the refrigerator to speed up the hardening process but you could leave them out overnight to achieve the same effect).  

A West Highland White Terrier, a heart, and a bat :)

I think this craft would definitely be more fun with an older child who could actually watch the Ivory cloud grow in the microwave, but it was a great activity for Little Lady to play with a different texture and have a lot of fun in the process! - says the village idiot 

Science Experiment UPDATE

A while back I attempted a science experiment.  It was my Pinterest Challenge for the week and today I'm bringing you an update.  

I read on Pinterest that you can plant green onions in water and they will grow back, and you can plant the top of a pineapple in dirt and it will grow another pineapple.  I was skeptical of both these claims but decided to try none-the-less.  I am happy to say, today, almost 6 weeks later, one of them succeeded!

As a reminder - this is what my green onions looked like the day I "planted" them:

This is what they looked like a week later, and what they look like today!

Pretty good right?!   They actually grew, A LOT!  

Now for the pineapple...

The fresh, newly "planted" pineapple

Maybe I cut too much off, maybe I didn't water it enough, maybe it didn't get enough sun, maybe you just can't grow a pineapple like this.  Your guess is as good as mine but here is that same pineapple today:

Nothing grew.  No roots.  No yummy pineapple for us.  

1 out of 2 science experiments isn't terrible!  The green onions worked great and I have not had to buy any for 6 weeks.  The pineapple on the other hand, I will continue to buy from the grocery store each time we have a craving.  Has anyone else had any lucky growing a pineapple in a pot? - says the village idiot

It's Groovy Baby

Today I took Little Lady to Music Together, a early childhood music and movement program.  The class was conveniently less than 10 minutes away and inconveniently right during Little Lady’s naptime.  (She still takes 2 naps, one being about 2 hours after she wakes up in the morning).  

I am happy to say the class was great and the teacher was lovely!  I signed Little Lady up for a free demo class a couple of weeks ago just to see what it was like.  Normally, this particular class runs for a 9 week spring semester and costs $172.  Even though it was a great class, and great opportunity for young kids to be around music and rhythm, it is strikingly similar to the free Story Time we attend every week at the local library.  And library Story Time is free!  And YOU KNOW how I feel about anything that is free – cue Tuesdays at Ikea.  As much as I would absolutely recommend the Music Together class, the difficulty of timing with Little Lady’s naps, and the fact that a very similar free option is offered, probably means I won’t be signing up for the 9 week session anytime soon. 

If anyone has any questions about the free library Story Time, please don’t hesitate to ask! I have been taking Little Lady to Story Time since she was about 6 months old.  She loves it and it is a great way to get out and about, and expose children to books, reading, songs, other kids, etc.  We attend every Friday at 11am at our local library.  If it is a nice day, we even walk there and back!  What a blessing to have such great activities in our neighborhood!  We try not to take them for granted! – says the village idiot 

Tuesdays at Ikea

So I know this isn't a Pinterest craft or anything, but I am trying to get back into more consistent blogging.  Spring weather has arrived in Maryland and it is too beautiful outside to stay indoors at all - especially after the winter we've had! 

Today I'm going to clue everyone in on a free event you can take advantage of in Baltimore. A friend told me about this a couple weeks ago and today was a rainy, nasty day so I thought it was the perfect time to try it out. 

The great store of IKEA offers free meals for kids every Tuesday! Now, we already like going to IKEA. The chic furniture and inexpensive home furnishings make it a great place to go to look for things we need for our home. They also have a pretty cool selection of wooden toys and overall fun things to play with.  Since they offer free meals for kids, I conveniently showed up around 11:30AM this morning and Little Lady and I wandered around the magical world of perfectly designed furniture ensembles and ended by playing in the kid section with all the toys for purchase. 

We then headed to the cafeteria for her free meal!  

Now, I may have brought a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and pretzels for Little Lady and I may have eaten her free meal...A little cheap I know but you gotta get creative these days! - says the village idiot