Colour Wheel Experiment

Make your own colour wheel using water in cups, food colouring and paper towels.

Simply fill 6 clear cups 1/4 of the way full of water.

Add food colouring to 3 of the cups (red, blue and yellow).

Make sure you use lots of food colouring in order to make vibrant colours.

Leave the other 3 cups with clear water.

Arrange the cups in a circle in order to resemble a colour wheel.

Place a piece of paper towel in between each cup.

Watch as the paper towel slowly sucks the water up and over the lip of the cup.

This process takes some time, so you may want to find something else to do for a while.

After a few hours, the paper towels have moved some of the primary colours into the cups that were clear in the beginning. The mixture of the colours creates the secondary colours (purple, orange and green)

Your kids will love watching the colours transform into new colours. My kids even requested keeping the colour wheel on our kitchen table as a centrepiece.

Mason Jar Rainbow Cakes

Have you ever made a cake and ended up with a bunch left over that you weren't quite sure what to do with asside from eating it on your own? This is the dilemma that I face whenever I make a cake. This is why I am so excited about the cakes in this post...

Mason Jar Rainbow Cakes!!

First, prepare your favourite cake mix. If you intend to add colours to your mix, pick a white cake. Evenly divide the mix into bowls. The number of bowls you use depends on the amount of colours you decide to use.

Next, add food colouring to your bowls to create different colours. I prefer to use the jell food colouring as I find it creates more vibrant colours compared to liquid food colouring.

Layer the cake mix in mason jars. I filled mine a little too full...try to only fill the jars about half way.

I didn't grease my jars and found they still worked fine, but I have read that you should grease them using a spray before adding the mix.

Bake the cakes on a cookie sheet (in case they overflow) at 350 degrees for approx 35 - 45 minutes. Baking times really depend on the size of the jar and the amount of cake mix in your jars. Just keep an eye on them.

Ice the top of the cake like you would a cupcake and enjoy. Put lids on the leftover jars and put them in the fridge or freezer. I left a jar in the fridge for 2 weeks and it was still great when I ate it.



DIY Multicoloured Crayons

What do you do with the broken pieces of crayons that litter the bottom of your kid's crayon box? I used to pick them out and throw them in the garbage. Not anymore...

Make your own multicoloured crayons out of left over crayon bits.

Simply, take the wrapping off the crayons and break them into small pieces. Next, place the pieces into any type of mould. You can use cupcake tins, or anything you have around the house that you think would make a nice crayon and can handle the heat of the oven.

I tried putting the crayon pieces in cookie cutters on a baking sheet but, as you can clearly see in the next picture, they leaked all over the place and made thin crayons. I'm sure if I had found a way to weigh the cookie cutters down to the cookie sheet, they would have turned out better.

I have seen other people use silicone ice cube trays. I think I'll try that next time.

When making your own crayon creations, make sure you use only one brand of crayons. I used mostly Crayola Crayons, but a few dollar store crayons were thrown in the mix. The dollar store crayons didn't really melt, so they stuck out and looked funny.

Be creative, have fun and have your little ones help you out with this one. Mine loved this activity, and their fingers are the perfect size for peeling crayons.

Tie Dyed Shirt

This neat craft is super simple and requires little set up and materials.

What you'll need:

1 plain t-shirt
Sharpie markers - various colours
Rubbing alcohol
Cups and rubber elastics



Make it:

As shown in the above picture, drape sections of the t-shirt over cups and secure them with elastic bands.



Then, colour away. Make designs or pictures. The more colours the better.

Once the pictures are done, take the rubbing alcohol in a medicine dropper and drop small amounts on each picture/design. Watch as the marker runs with the alcohol.



Finally, take the elastics off and hang the shirt to dry.

Glow In The Dark Bath

A couple of nights ago, my five year old asked if I could turn off the lights while she and her brother were in the tub. At the time I said no, but it got me thinking. Wouldn't it be fun to have a bath in the dark? But that seems pretty dangerous, not to mention, a little scary for my two year old. So, what could I do to make the "in the dark bath" not so dark and fun at the same time? The answer came to me in the form of little plastic sticks...GLOW STICKS!

So, last night, I asked my kids if they wanted to have a bath in the dark. My five year old shouted "yes" without even thinking, but my two year old was a little apprehensive. When I told them there would be colourful lights in the tub with them, my two year old, jumped into the tub and yelled, "lights off"!





When the lights went out and the glow sticks were shinning from the bottom of the tub, my kids were in "glow tub" heaven. They played in the bath tub for almost an hour. The water was cold and yet they didn't want the fun to be over. In order to get them out of the tub, I had to promise them another lights-off bath in the near future.



I guess it's time to stock up on glow sticks.

WARNING - If your child likes to put things in their mouth or bite things, I wouldn't recommend this activity.

Sugar Cookies

What you'll need:

3 cups all purpose flour  

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup salted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Make it:

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
Mix the wet ingredients with a mixer and slowly add the dry ingredients.
Split the dough into two equal parts, wrap with plastic wrap and put into the fridge for either an hour or overnight.
When the dough is ready, roll it out and cut out shapes.
Bake the cookies for 8 - 10 minutes at 350 degrees.





Once the cookies are fully cooled, you can ice them.

Royal icing:

3 egg whites
3 tsp lemon juice
4 1/2 cups icing sugar

Make it:

Mix the ingredients until smooth, tint the icing with colour if you like and ice your cookies.





This recipe makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

Christmas Ornaments

This recipe is very basic and easy to do. Once the dough is made, it is easy to work with and sets nicely. If you need to take a break while making the ornaments, make sure you cover the dough with plastice wrap so it doesn't dry out and harden.

What you'll need
• 2 cups baking soda
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups water

Put it Together 

1. Mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is too thick to stir with a spoon.

 



2. Cool for 15 minutes. Knead it for about 5 minutes on a surface sprinkled with baking soda. Keep dough wrapped in plastic when you're not using it.



Cut the dough into shapes (If you are making ornaments, use a straw to make the holes in the top for string or ribbon) and set on a drying rack to dry. Flip the ornaments a few times before they are completely dried to ensure that they dry flat.

Once you have molded it, it will take 1-2 days for the clay to dry depending on how thick your craft is. This clay can be painted with either Tempera or acrylic craft paints.

Elf on a Shelf

It seems as though every year there is a new trend right around Christmas. This year, I believe it is the “Elf on a Shelf” that we now have roaming throughout our home.

The elf comes with a Christmas story, which explains how Santa knows who is naughty and nice. Every night your elf will fly back to the North Pole to report to Santa and in the morning he/she will be somewhere in your house…usually doing something mischievous.

Here are some pictures of our elf “Wobbly” and some of the funny business he has gotten into. I will continue to update the pics until Christmas when Wobbly will go back to the North Pole until next year.