Pink Popcorn

The girls and I made Pink Popcorn for our craft last week. I don't normally do a lot of food crafts with them but for Valentine's day, we tend to do a lot of food. It turned out great and even their parents loved it. 

Making it is simple. Super simple. We used three things to make this.

• Popcorn
• Wilton Chocolate Melts (Pink colored)
• Sprinkles

That's it. I bought popcorn that was light in salt and butter but you can probably use anything.

The steps are simple.

1. Pop the popcorn and then lay it on a baking sheet or pour in a bowl.
2. Melt the chocolate (we used a bag for two bags of popcorn)
3. Pour chocolate on the popcorn and mix around lightly. 
4. When the popcorn is coated put it on wax paper (this makes the clean up easy). You could also put the wax paper on the baking sheet to make it a little easier.
5. (Optional) Decorate with sprinkles
6. Let the chocolate harden

*Do no put in the refrigerator to cool. 

The steps are simple but I thought I would tell you that when it hardens, they stick together. If you don't want them to turn into a giant block, spread them out a bit.

Also, this is how we made it. There are probably several ways to make this so experiment and try something different if you want. You can color this any kind of color so it's a versatile treat.

Heart-Shaped Pie Pops

Last Wednesday, the girls and I made these awesome little things for our craft. We made some mistakes along the way but when I remade them, they turned out great because I made sure not to make the same mistakes twice.

Anyway, these Pie Pops are extremely easy to make but they do tend to get messy if you overfill them. Just a warning. Also, I found these while browsing pinterest. I don't know if I did it the same way since I never actually followed the link but if you want to see the directions go here. I'm not doing step by step instructions as much as I am going through my process and where we went wrong. It was such a mess with those girls too.

I allowed the girls to roll out the crust, which was my first mistake but I let them do it until they thought it was good. I really should have checked on the 4-year-old's work before slapping them on. It was just a bit too thick.

They cut the hearts out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter I bought just for this project. I think this was their favorite part but the oldest did get a little too excited while doing it and had to start over.

Ta-dah! But it was too thick. You wouldn't think it was if you were there in person but it was way too thick. I didn't want to tell her we needed to do it again because she was very proud of her work so, I let them go with it. When you roll out crust, you want it to be extremely thin especially for this project.

After I let Brynna prep the baking sheet, we placed the bottom half of the hearts on it and put the stick in the middle. You don't have to do this. I didn't the second time because I thought they looked cute but I also used a bigger heart-shaped cookie cutter when I made it without the stick (in the photo with the post title in it).

We used actual pie filling for these because it was just easier and I was going to use it for something else later. We learned that only one cherry can fit inside, the rest needs to be the gel stuff (I have no idea what it's called). I'm sure there are other things you can use for this. I went the cheap route.

Then we added the top and Brynna went to town. She understood exactly what we had to do even though I didn't tell her. I know they don't make pie like this very often or at all so it threw me off guard but she did an excellent job with this part.

We gently brushed some melted butter on the tops before sprinkling it with brown sugar. I do mean a gentle amount of butter. We only used it to make the sugar stay in place and to help with the crust. I had to explain to the girls that they only needed a little bit of brown sugar because some little girl (Brynna) went a little crazy with one of them.

After they were done, we threw them in the oven for 10 minutes (or when the crust was golden) and took it out. The minute I bit into the pie, I knew what was wrong with it. The crust was too thick but they weren't bad. 

I went back and made them during the weekend and it turned out wonderful.

***Note - I used a pie crust mix because everything had to be quick and the girls would have made that an even bigger mess. Normally I wouldn't care but we had things to do.

Valentine's Day Treats

It's been a while since I last been on here. I've been writing and I've been keeping a separate blog for that. I don't update very often, I'll tell you that. So, I decided that I'm going to try to get back into blogging again since some of the things I have planned for the year involves being creative. And I want to start crafting with the girls more again. I've been slacking...a lot.

Wednesday, the girls and I made out Valentine's Day craft but I was on a budget so it was something simple, cheap, and somewhat easy. I made Rice Krispies Treats that we molded into hearts ourselves. We didn't have a cookie cutter and I love molding things with my hands. The girls didn't mind getting messy.

We took Wilton Candy Melts and coated the Rice Krispies Treats. It was different for every child. I also had to keep them from eating everything. It was hard. The oldest one really doesn't like to listen when I tell her not to eat something.

Here are a few of them. We gave some my friend who works just a few door down from my own work place and they were very excited to have them. It was actually rather cute how excited the oldest boy was.

Favor Boxes Can Make A Fun Craft

So, I have a lot of these party favor boxes that I bought at Micheal's over a year ago and I couldn't figure out what to do with them. Today, I finally sat down and played around with them. The first time I made something, I made it cutesy and child like, thinking of Little One and Older One. It turned out to be this purple dino/monster thing. It's cute and the girls loved him...but didn't want to make one with me. That's fine. It took forever to make anyway.

I decided to mess around a little more when Little One went down for a nap. I didn't finish until I got home but it took me a total of 4 hours! You wouldn't believe half the things I used. The end result is worth it, though. Actually, I'm very proud of it and will give you shots of random parts of it. It turned out better than I was expecting. The mobile version my look a little wonky, sorry about that.

It might not seem like much but with all the effort I put behind it, it turned out better than I was hoping.

Shingles - I painted sand paper (60) in black.

The box inside is 2 1/4 inches on every side.