Posts Tagged ‘Fun for kids

What do you get when you combine a goofy picture of your kid with a bunch of Wheatgrass seeds?

Best.Homemade.Gift.Eveh.

My daughter’s class made these for the school Open House last week. Just picture 18 of these crazy-haired kids making faces at you as you walk into the classroom.

I sure love this crazy kid.

Just had to share.

Carry on.

Look what I bought!

Yup, a sewing machine!

Costco has them for like 180 bucks, and I’ve been saving for one so I bought it.

And I LURVE it. A lot. I’ve never had a nice machine. Never. Last one I had I bought used at a sew shop like 11 years ago and it was craaaaap-y.

This one can do all sorts of fancy stitches and came with all these different feet things that I don’t even know what they are used for.

I’m not really a seamstress. No, let me rephrase. I’m NOT a seamstress. My mother can sew and is great at it, and she taught me how to sew. She also put me in a sewing class when I was a kid for a week one summer (loved it!). So basically I can do basic sewing.

I didn’t need anything super-fancy and this machine is purrr-fect..

In fact, I finally bought a machine for one reason. This:

Capri-sun bags!

Seriously. I saved up and bought my machine so I can make cute bags out of capri-sun packages.

Yes, I made the lunch sack. Isn’t it stinkin’ ca-ute?!!!

These are really easy to make. And if I can sew one together, I’m pretty sure most people can sew one together.

I figured I’d give it to my daughter because it seems a tad girly, but my son saw it and wanted one too…

And then there were two capri-sun lunch sacks.

Apparently Beverly Hills has never seen or heard of capri-sun bags and lunch sacks because I have all the parents (and other kids) at the school flipping out over these bags! I’ve had several moms ask me to make one for them. Niiiice.

I’m going to eventually put them in my etsy shop (after I get moved from CA to TX this month) but for now, if you reeeeeaally want one, can’t live without one, and don’t want to make one yourself, I’ll make you one for $20 (shipping included). Just email me.

I was on such a roll that I decided to make a pencil holder as well.

It probably would have been nice to trim off all the extra thread before I took the pictures. Oops.

I don’t know why something made from trash is so cute! Seriously. I’m just dying. They are adorable.

How do I acquire all the capri-sun pouches? That has been tricky! If you have any tips on how to get lots of pouches, please let me know.

Most of them I’ve been saving for months. I’ve known for awhile that I’m going to make lots of crafts with them. I’ve got several nieces that would love a purse for their birthday!

I told my kids for every pouch they bring home from school from their friends, I’ll give them 10 cents. My hubbs thinks that’s a total rip off, but I had to make the deal sweet enough that my kids would actually cooperate. I’m considering volunteering in the school cafeteria just so I can scour the garbage cans after lunch each day.

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I’m all about giving credit where credit is due, so here is how to make the bags, and also links to where I got the ideas from.

To make any capri-sun item, first you have to clean the pouches.

Cut a slit in the bottom of each empty juice bag. I just snipped it with a pair of scissors.

(Image courtesy of Skip To My Lou.)

Next, you have to wash them. You can do it by hand but it’s easier to just load up the dishwasher.

(Image courtesy of Enchanted Art.)

And then to make the lunch bag, you can follow the tutorial at Thrifty Fun.

To make the pencil cup holder, there’s a great tutorial over at My Montessori Journey.

I’ve made a few more fun things with capri-sun pouches so check back soon for another installment!

Have you ever made anything from capri-suns? Tell us about it in the comments section! If you have any links to posts you’ve made I’d love to see them and might even do a capri-sun features party!

Don’t you hate it when you get all your ice cream cones filled with batter only to have them tip over and spill in the pan when you try to put them in the oven?

I decided to make a pan prototype to bake my cones in to stop the spills and mess!

Yup, I made a prototype. And I was going to mass-produce it and sell it on HSN and become a billionaire, er, or at least a thousand-aire.

But my dreams were crushed when I realized someone else already designed one. And it was better than mine. And they already mass-produce them.

So much for my big break.

BUT considering I wasted so much time making my pan, I’m going to show you it anyway. And you can make one and save yourself $15.95 (plus shipping).

I bought this cheap tin pan from the 99 cent store. It’s going to be the frame for my awesome one-of-a-kind cupcake cone baker.

I took a sharpie and measured out a 3 x 4 square grid. Then I traced around the base of an ice cream cone in the center of each square. After that I cut each square out with a utility knife on a cutting board. The tin is so craptastic from the 99 cent store that it was really easy to cut.

Once my circles were cut out I just flipped it over and put it on a cookie sheet. Now it’s ready to load with ice cream cones!

Brilliant, right? I guess that’s why the pan was already invented – like YEARS ago.

And just for fun I took a picture of what it looks like from the underside. Clever.

So there you have it. My I-thought-I-had-an-original-idea ice cream cone cupcake pan.

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And now for a 2nd tutorial on how to make Cupcake cones. Because I love them so much. And these turned out cuter than my original ones. And because I bake so infrequently that when I do I feel the need to show everyone that I can actually bake and be domestic in the kitchen.

Fill the cones with batter. The easiest way is to put all your batter in a large gallon-size ziploc bag, snip the corner, and squeeze the batter into the cones.

Rearing and ready to go. And in case you are wondering, I did not use gross batter with dirt in it. I used Funfetti batter. If you’re going to make cupcakes in cones, at least make them F-U-N, right?! I bet those ca-ute rainbow cakes would look adorable in the cones too.

Bake them the same way you’d bake cupcakes. Follow the directions on the box. Yes, the BOX. Do you actually think I bake from scratch?! Hahahahaha!

I took the awesome ice cream cone pan off the cookie sheet and set it on the cooling rack to dry. My I-thought-I-had-an-original-idea ice cream cone cupcake pan works great to hold the cones up while they cool.

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Now for the icing. This part is really REALLY FUN!

Like I did for the batter, I LOVE icing cupcakes the same way. It’s cheaper than buying a decorator set, easier to clean up, and looks super duper ca-ute!

Fill your zip-lock bag with icing. USE A REAL ZIP-LOCK BRAND BAG. I used a generic one and when I squeezed the icing out the bag exploded on me. And that was really a treat to clean up.

The easiest way to fill the bag is to put the bag inside a cup and wrap the edges of the bag over the cup (like putting in a trashcan liner). Then just take a butter knife or an icing spatula thingy and scoop the icing into the bag.

When the bag is full, just take it out of the cup and zip it up. And when I say that I bake sometimes, what I really mean to say is that I buy all the pre-made boxed stuff and then I pretend to bake. Why make from scratch what Pillsbury has already made for me and frankly tastes better?

Okay, so Pampered Chef sells these little clippie things that I am in love with. But they are pricey. So I’ve found a cheap solution. Did you know you can get a ha-uge bag of clippies that are identical to the Pampered Chef ones at IKEA for like $1.99 a bag? Yup. And there are 3 different sizes. And I use them every.single.day. For everything.

So anyway, after I zip-locked the bag, I added a little clippie to hold the icing even tighter in the bag. And also to make sure my zip-lock didn’t pop open.

Once you’ve got the icing in the bag just snip off a tiny corner. Now it’s time to PIPE.

Honestly, I LOVE the look of this piping way more than any other tip you can buy. And it’s way too easy.

Just start on the outside edge of the cupcake and start squeezing the icing in a spiral motion towards the center. It should take about 3 full rotations.

Aren’t they cute? Okay, some of them look like crap, but I was still getting the hang of it. But ideally, they are really super cute.

And then if you add sprinkles and stuff they instantly become about 100x cuter. No?

It’s taunting me. Just looking at it is making me salivate. Too bad we ate this batch about 2 weeks ago.

Ah-freaking-dorable. You can’t get much cuter than this.

Are these fun or what?!?! My kids beg for them. They would rather me make these for their birthday parties than buy a cute cake.

And if this post wasn’t fun enough already, I cut a cone open to see the middle of it.

I want to say how fun this is, but I think I’ve way over-used the word “fun” in this post. And “adorable”. I think the inside of the cupcakes look so cool.

So there you have it. How to make an ice cream cone pan, bake cupcakes in cones, AND how to ice cupcakes all in one post. Lucky you.

I’ve made a new and improved version of the Cupcake Cones. Find it Here.