Homemade Sidewalk Paint

We are always looking for fun new crafts or projects, especially right now while most of our social interactions is with each other.  The weather has been beautiful here in Iowa and we are loving getting outside daily.  E and I made some sidewalk pain the other day.  Our chalk is down to the bare bones so we needed something else to decorate our driveway.

Mix equal parts cornstarch and water.  Add food coloring.  That's it!  We placed ours in a muffin pan to make it easier to move around.  

Homemade Italian Tomato Sauce

I have had an abundance of tomatoes already this year!  For the past few days I have been cooking down homemade Italian tomato sauce.  I am trying a new recipe this year and thought I would share it with you because it has turned out really delicious.  

First, I washed and then cut all my tomatoes in half.  I spread them out on a cookie sheet.  Drizzled olive oil, salt, and pepper over them.  I added cut up onions and lots of garlic.  I then topped it with fresh basil.  I placed it in the oven at 250 degrees for 2 hours.  

Once they were well roasted I pulled them out, let them cool and then ran the whole batch through my KitchenAid food strainer.  I placed the pulp onto the stove and cooked it down till the sauce reached the desired consistency.  

I decided to make one more batch in the oven but I removed all the skin and seeds from the tomatoes and once it was roasted I pureed it a bit and added it to the original batch to thicken it up.

Here it is on the stove and almost all ready to preserve!  

On a side note.  I posted on my Facebook page that my first batch of tomato sauce tasted really bitter and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.  I have since discovered thanks to my husbands research that you should not cook tomatoes (or any acidic foods) in aluminum pans because it can lead to a metallic, bitter flavor.  

Homemade Valentine's For Kids

Happy Valentines Day!  I wanted to share with you the homemade Valentine's I made for my kids.

Can I first say...I love Pinterest!  Pinterest is full of all sorts of fun crafty things to do.

We made these adorable Olof Valentine's for all the kids.

Here is a picture I took this morning after they put them together.

Here is what we made the girls.  I printed these butterfly templates onto colored card stock.  We wrote around the edges "Happy Valentine's Day".  I used my heart punch to punch out scrapbook paper hearts and glue them on the wings.  I used hot glue to place the eyes on the sucker, made 2 slits in the center of the butterfly and inserted the sucker.

 

These super hero Valentine's were probably my favorite.  I found the printable for them here.  I used just regular felt to make the capes.  I cut out the logos  and glued them onto the cape.  Punched holes in the capes as well as the cards on the front with a paper punch. Inserted the sucker and used a ribbon to tie them all together.  Here are the fronts.

And of course the capes!

My kids were so excited!  

I used all craft materials I had on hand.  I purchased the suckers and a few items for the olof bags.