January 2012 – Page 3 – The Creative Salad

Melted Crayon Hearts Tutorial

This may look like a Valentine’s Day project–and, yes, it certainly could be!–but in our house these adorable crayon hearts are for a certain little girl’s birthday party at the end of the month!

These melted crayon hearts are super simple to make and a great reuse project for any old, broken crayons you have lying around.

First gather your crayons and peel the paper off each of them, a favorite kid activity in our house:

Using your hands, break each crayon into several small pieces so that they will fit inside your mold. We used silicone molds that are meant for candy-making and are available in a wide variety of shapes including dinosaurs, shoes and purses, or the hearts shown above. Amazon or your local baking supply store has you covered.

Unfortunately, the downside to using these cute molds for this project is that once you’ve melted crayons in them you can no longer bake with them. Sigh.

Place the molds in a preheated 250 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the crayons have completely melted:

Let them cool for twenty minutes and then pop them out of the mold:

Your new, adorable chunky crayons are ready to use!

Or, in our case, ready to place into favor bags for our guests. Such fun!

Thanks to From An Igloo for the inspiration and how-to! Found via Pinterest.

January is the New June

Instead of typical rainy winter weather, we’re enjoying summertime here in California’s wine country. 70 degrees, sunny… I keep reminding our family to wear sunscreen. It’s hot out there!

And so we’ve been doing all sorts of fun summer activities like scootering on the trail every day and biking into town with our friends’ awesome Burley Bee Bike Trailer:

Each day I walk through the house, opening each window wide, and sighing deeply as I breathe in the loveliness that is western Sonoma county:

Oh, and the birds loved their popcorn garland treat:

Our daughter is already talking about next year’s garland for the tree and doing it all over again. I love making family traditions!

Happy winter!

The Perfect Gift for this Mama

I never thought this day would come.

My husband and I, as avid readers, love being surrounded by books.

But in our very small house,
and with our limited book budget,
it doesn’t make sense to accumulate any new books.

And so when I learned about ebook lending from our library, I jumped on the Kindle bandwagon.

And here we are.

Reading has never felt so light or comfortable. (Yes, I am one of those readers who typically reads really long–i.e. heavy–books.)

Heart!

Shown above: Kindle Touch 3G, BUILT Kindle and Kindle Touch Slim Neoprene Sleeve, Verso Clip-On Reading Light for Kindle, and Pegasus by Robin McKinley.

Breakfast Banana Split Recipe

I’m always on the lookout for fast, healthy breakfast recipes. This Breakfast Banana Split takes less than five minutes to make and leaves me feeling full all morning. Plus it sounds like a treat even though it contains only healthy ingredients: cottage cheese, banana, nuts, and jam.

Breakfast Banana Split
Adapted from Clean Eating – since it’s not available on their website, I thought I would post it here for us all to share and enjoy.
Serves 1.

Ingredients:
1 banana
1/2 cup cottage cheese
2 tbsp all-fruit jam
1/4 cup roasted, sliced almonds or nut of your choice

Peel and cut banana in half lengthwise. Place banana halves in a shallow dish or bowl. Place cottage cheese over the center of the banana and top with jam, nuts and (optional!) a pinch of salt. Serve and enjoy!

An Excuse Not to Do the Dishes

In this period after the holidays, when we set aside our regular tasks for several weeks to celebrate, I feel as though I have so much catch-up to do and find myself feeling overwhelmed.

There are so many things I want to do, with barely enough time in the day to do the things I need to do. I feel as though everywhere I turn there is a giant pile of things that need attending, scrubbing, filing, cleaning, or caring for. This cycle of rinse, wash, repeat wears me down as I tackle meal-preparation, laundry, dishes, toy pick-up, house cleaning, bill paying, and daily housekeeping tasks.

In times like these, I need to ask for help (husband! daughter!) and then take a step back. In reality the only thing that matters is caring for our daughter, caring for myself, caring for my husband.

I recently spied this quote on Pinterest and think (hope!) it’s spot-on:

Even though my to-do list is pages long and I feel overwhelmed by the multitude of tasks, I can focus on the most important part of my day: the smiles, the laughter, the joy in being a parent, in being a spouse, in being a friend. Life is short. Every moment counts.

Now excuse me while I go hug my kid and kiss my husband. Dishes be damned.

p.s. Want to hang this quote in your kitchen too? Download a free pdf of the above poster here.