Fakin' It

Bug Catcher/ Critter Carrier Tutorial

 

I  have the easiest craft for you today. You don't even need any special supplies. I call it a bug catcher or a critter carrier depending what is actually caught. This is also a great craft to do with cub scouts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All you need is an empty parmesan container, scissors, green paper, tape, stickers, string or yarn and something to punch a hole with.

 

 For the grass, snip about 2/3 of the way down on your 1 inch strip of paper until you have enough "grass" to wrap around the bottom of the jar.

 

 

 

 

Punch a hole on each side and thread the yarn from the outside in tying the knot on the inside. Now it's time for stickers. My boys didn't add a ton because they didn't want to block the view. Add some grass, leaves and sticks to the bottom of your bug jar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it's time to go bug hunting. Screw on the lid. There's one side with air holes and one side with a larger opening to pop in your wild creature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boys had such a blast looking for their bugs. FYI, daddy longlegs can escape through the air hole.

 
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Dog Days of Summer Muffin Tin Lunch

Summer vacation is here for one of my three children. It kinda stinks that they are in two different school systems but that just seems to be what meets their needs the best. For our first summer muffin tin lunch we did a Dog Days of Summer Theme.

1. Doggy Cupcake (click HERE to see how to make your own)
2. Pawprint (apple cut with cookie cutter and then colored with black sprinkles which melted)
3. Bone (cheese quesadilla cut with cookie cutter)
4. Veggie Dog Face (dip with carrot ears and red pepper face)
5. Black and White Dog (cheese quesadilla cut with cookie cutter and colored with food grade markers)
6. Dog Food (chopped chicken nuggets

 

The black on the apple weirded L out a bit and she just nibbled around the edges. She did eat all of the veggie face and I had some extras cut off to the side which she also ate. I thinks she views veggies as a untensil used for eating dip :)

 
The first thing L did when she sat down to eat was pick up the dog quesadilla and bite his head off. Perhaps my child has a little Ozzy in her. For the cupcake she ate the eats, then the rest of the face, then the frosting and then to my utter amazement she actually ate the cake. I wanted to shout "Hey Mikey likes it!" I know that is dating myself a bit.

There are tons of cute dog books to pair with a lunch like this but I just love Bark, George by Jules Feiffer.

 

 

In this adorable story, George's mom is trying to teach him to bark but each time he opens his mouth, the sound from another animals comes out, like an oink or a meow.

 

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Puppy Dog Cupcakes with Nutella Buttercream Frosting

So I have been having these intense cravings for cupcakes lately. Cupcakes and chicken salad. It is a virtual impossibility for me to be pregnant so maybe it's menopause. Do women get strange cravings during menopause? Whatever the reason, I needed to do something about it.

Being the mature adult and healthy eater that I am, I had to make the cupcakes look all cute, like they were really meant for the kids. That's when I came up with the idea of adding a puppy dog face.

       My favorite combination is Nutella and banana. I will cut a banana in half lengthwise, smear on some Nutella, slap it back together and have the yummiest snack. I have never incorporated banana into frosting before so I figured it better go in the cake. I just used one banana b/c I didn't want it the cake to be to dense.

 Here they are hot out of the oven, light and fluffy chocolate banana cupcakes. Yumm! Next comes the fun part, decorating...

For the cupcakes I just followed the directions on the box and added in the one banana.

Nutella Buttercream Frosting:

2 sticks unsalted butter softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup Nutella

1/4 cup of milk

1 tsp vanilla  

Follow Michael Jackson's instructions and BEAT IT yah BEAT IT Beat It beat it...

OK maybe I'm just losing my mind, maybe that's why I'm craving cupcakes and chicken salad.  

  
  I don't have a lot of items from Pampered Chef but I sure do love my frosting shooter. (not sure that is the technical name) It gives more depth and texture to the icing rather than just spreading it on with a knife. To make the puppy ears, nose and mouth, I melted chocolate melts in a snack size zip lock bag in the microwave for about 25 seconds.

 
Just trim the tip off of the corner of the bag and pipe 2 ovals for the ears, a little triangle for the nose and then the mouth onto a piece of wax paper. Let that harden and then place on top of the frosted cupcake along with a pair of candy eyes (I got mine at Joann's).

  
Given that I have three kids, they all have to confuse me by being totally different. One will eat a whole cupcake. One will eat only the frosting and one will eat only the cake. (of course you could never ask something as practical as having the last two share). Anyway, I knew this was a success when all three kids ate every part of their cupcakes, face, frosting and cake. And my cupcake craving was finally curbed, at least for a little while:)

 

Thanks so much for visiting me at Fakin It. I truly love to read all your comments, especially as I am chowing down a cupcake.

Please click HERE to check out all the awesome blogs that I link up with each week.

I Spy Bags--A Great Gift for Any Age

 
Baby Loves Blankies and so do I.  Baby Loves Blankies is an Esty shop I have purchased from on more than one occasion. But guess what! She doesn't make blankies, she makes I Spy Bags, adorable, sturdy (this is a must for anything coming into our home), attention grabbing, little I Spy Bags.

A couple of Christmases ago, we planned on leaving Christmas day to drive to Florida for vacation. Most of what I bought the kids that year were items for vacation or for the car trip. They each got an I Spy bag. Their ages at the time were 8, 6 and 3 and while they each used the bag a bit differently, they all loved it.

 
 When we got back from our trip, L took her I Spy Bag into preschool for show-and-tell. The teacher sent a note home saying what a big hit the bag was and how all the kids loved it! So at the end of the year, I bought 2 more as a classroom gift. And guess what-with all those little preschool hands grabbing and pulling and throwing them, the bags still look new. Now that's craftsmanship.

 
Are your kids big time into licensed characters? Jaime's got you covered! And unlike I Spy books where the kids look through once and know where everything is, the items in the I Spy bag are constantly shifting, allowing for unending fun and exploration.

 
Do you have both readers and nonreaders in your house? No problem, each bag comes with two removable tags, 1 with pictures and 1 with words. The I Spy Bags also come in 2 sizes, Itsy Bitsy (5x5) and regular (7x7).

 
If you are one of those uber crafty moms and are thinking "Hey, I could make that!" then Baby Loves Blankies can still help you out because she sells the flannel fabric and charms. And even though I could never possibly sew anything, I love these Pepsi can charms and am racking my brain for a fun use for them. Hmmmm. Any ideas for me?

Have fun shopping!

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