Triple Project Tuesday

Today's pinterest inspired projects:
salt dough keepsakes & nutella hot cocoa & quick yard ghosts*

Now I've done the salt dough before but always left it out for a week to dry out on it's own.
SALT DOUGH: Very old simple recipe of 2 parts flour to 1 part salt plus water. Pinterest calls for you to "cure" it in the oven at 250 for 2 hours. Sillies had a blast playing with it... rolling it out (using an empty salt container because I couldn't find my rolling pin!) and cookie cutters. I used a skewer to poke holes in each of them so I could later be able to hang them with ribbon. Sillies is excited, but Momma didn't know he played with the timer so they were in for less than 2 hours... and the hand prints puffed. Not happy about the ornaments puffing up. The acorn ones are great, the larger hand prints don't feel right.
Project grade: end result + fun creating =B

Nutella hot cocoa. Splenda, more often hiding in the ingredient list as Sucrolose, makes my inside try to kill me. Serious intestinal pain. Sucrolose is the third or last ingredient in every hot cocoa packets I find in the store. It sucks. It's not just the low calorie ones... even the ones with lots of sugar will list Splenda/sucrolose as the last ingredient! < / rant >
Anyhow, it was chilly and my husband still isn't home and I don't know how to properly start the pellet stove (we moved here in Spring) so... hot cocoa craving! Then I was sad because I don't have any in the house (because I stopped buying it because of the sucrolose.) and... *blink blink blink* I remembered the pinterest 2 cups milk + 2 spoons Nutella = yum! So... I get out a saucepan, put in 2 cups milk and a big spoon of nutella and turn on simmer and then start the bath for my son. I return and stir and it's still too cold for all the nutella to come off the spoon and my son wants to then show me a bubble mohawk... so I then completely forget about it until after his bath. I used my rubber whisk, but it was slightly too late... the nutella got slightly scorched. It was better than no hot chocolate and much better than the packets of pain.
Project grade: A (my result =A- and I burnt it, so I totally recommend this hot cocoa recipe!)

Quick Yard Ghosts*
-Old handkerchief or a square that size of white fabric
-Whiffle ball
- large rubberband
-long stick
Super quick & easy & will withstand the rain. My son thinks they are awesome and was thrilled to put his shoes on and go put them in the yard near the driveway.
These I didn't find on pinterest, but it should be up there. If I had a working camera it totally would be up there! It's my creative way of giving my son the handmade ghosts for our yard that he said he wanted last week. "Not just a pumpkin Mommy, we need ghosts too!" By the way, a four pack of small whiffle balls was found at the dollar store, as well as one large flour sack cloth (which I cut into quarters) and I have been keeping rubberbands from veggies from the farmer's market... so I made 4 lawn ghosts for $2.

October starts

Hooray for mostly success!
I'm taking a moment from cleaning to do a pitiful excuse for a post.

-"We're all mad here" sign done, in need of touch up, but done
-Olde Tyme Faire sign figured out. This is a project I was asked to do for church. I still think less words is better, but whatever, the project isn't my baby like it is to the event chair person
-leftovers for dinner that didn't feel like leftovers
-octopus from old paper towel cardboard rolls
-play-doh funtime
-battery tea light in a plastic jackolantern basket = instant jackolantern for the window that can't burn down the hosue
-I came up with a useful short cut: votive candle in a wine goblet normally creates a mess... Get out a cupcake liner! Put the paper cup in the goblet, open it up as much as you can, place the votive in and light! The cup collects the wax protecting the glass, the glass protects the flame from drafts and the second half of the votive BURNS LONGER! The wax isn't forever spreading out making that huge puddle... which slows the burning. PLUS if you get themed cup liners like I do, it can be that much more decorative. :)
+I came up with a hanging ghost project at my son's request. (Styrofoam ball rant) I went to the dollar store to pick up whiffle balls in place of using the styrofoam for the head base. I couldn't find googley-eyes in the dollar store. Boo! Going to have my son glue together cloth circles and I'll attach the eyes with a single stitched 'x' in the middle of the eyes. (I hate to sew because I'm horrible at it!)
 +figured out my chess queen crown for my Halloween costume. Again, I'll be using a whiffle ball in place of the styrofoam ball. Again, will be interesting because I'm horrible with a sewing needle.

Projects done by October 5th:
-"We're all mad here"
-"goblet candles"
-Pumpkin Snickerdoodles (didn't turn out as well as the ones I did in September)

Started:
-Olde Tyme Faire
-portrait painting

So really, I'm still alive and well. I just get busy (new house!, child, health, life) and don't feel like I write very well so I either forget or tell myself "another day without writing won't kill my blog"... and it's true. While good blogs are like houseplants, this blog is like a dandelion... it persists whether you water it or cut it down.
And for that, sometimes, I am grateful.

I have  a friend who is doing attempting to do 365 projects from pinterest.com over a year's time. This young woman has two very young children. And she's blogging about the projects. And... the best part... she's amusing as hell and REAL. Like opening the front door-for-the-mailman-with-the-toothbrush-in-your-mouth real.

I love the concept and her writing.
And so I'm a little inspired.
At least so much so as to pledge to update my own blog once a week AND do my own project once a week.

I already do at least one project once a week, but now I'll keep track and try to share about it.
I am not above having my Halloween costume (The Red Queen) count in this as a project since I've put enough thought forward and intended to make my own crown too. (A proper Red Queen crown, not just any crown, NOT the Queen of Hearts Crown, but a chess queen crown.) I must admit today I caved while looking for a Mad Hatter hat in iParty.... I fell like a pawn for the ease of buying a $6 crown that I can easily use as a base and will only take 3 steps to modify. This will take incredibly less talent, patience and time than making a prom-quality type crown... and be less expensive. Did you know Styrofoam balls are a few bucks EACH? I can buy a pack of styrofoam cups (I don't, but I could) for the cost of ONE 4 inch styrofoam ball. It annoys the hell out of me. I an struggling to come up with a non-styryofoam option and will probably rant about having to spend $4 on a piece of styrofoam before it's Halloween.

The upside... it's October, I'm inspired to be creative, and my husband hasn't seen our credit card bills for the crafts & clothes I bought yet :)