Pizza Party, Mermaid Style

I told the mermaids that we were making a pizza for our craft this week and you would have thought I had told them we were going to burn all their toys.

You see, my girls hate pizza, a fact which used to turn every birthday party they were invited to into an absolute tragedy. But as they get older, they are getting better at declining the pizza with a polite, "No thank you. I don't eat pizza."

This, however, gives the impression to the other parents at the party that Mormons don't eat pizza, which of course is not true. Unless the pizza is laced with coffee, tea leaves, alcohol or ecstasy, that is.

You can imagine the relief on my girls' faces when I told them that we were going to making fruit pizza. Ahh...the world has righted itself again. Now this was something they could handle.
I have a wonderful recipe that I discovered years ago which was instrumental in getting my husband to fall in love with me,

and, because you were so nice to stop by and read my blog, I will share it with you.

Fruit Pizza

Crust:

1 c. marg/butter

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. almond extract

2 1/2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cream of tartar

Mix butter, sugar, egg, vanilla and almond extract. Cream. Add all other ingredients. Press into the bottom of a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Bake 375 for 12 minutes.

Pizza "Sauce":

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 c. cool whip

1 1/2 powdered sugar

Blend together and spread on cooled crust. Top with fruit (berries, mandarine oranges, pineapple etc.)

PS While watching the credits after the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie I saw that the mermaid (the not-so-scary one) was named Syrena, and spelled the same way as I spell my daughter's name. I did a little research (i.e. googled) and found that there is a legend in Poland about a mermaid who wielded a sword and shield and protected the city of Warsaw. The mermaid's name was Syrena, and there is a bronze statue of her in the middle of the city. Who knew?

A Disgusting Treat

This week we made "pupcicles" for our mer-dog, Jimmer, and our neighbor dogs. This is an easy, easy craft, but quite disgusting.

We used ricotta cheese and plain yogurt for the "base" of our pupcicles,

and rawhide strips for the pupcicle sticks.

Then we had a variety of nauseating mix-ins,

including mini pepperonis, dog jerky and dog food. You could also add cheese or peanut butter.

Mixed with the yogurt and cottage cheese, this craft thoroughly grossed-out everyone.

This photo just doesn't do it justice. You've got to smell it.

We invited our lovely mer-neighbor to join us.

Here she is, showing us what she thinks of this craft:

Here it is, all put together, ready to be frozen.

After mixing their pupcicles, the mermaids and mer-neighbor promptly fled.

I lined the treats up in the freezer:

The next day:

Mmmm....want some?

Let's see what Jimmer thinks.

I think he likes it!

We took the rest of the pupcicles to Jimmer's neighbors: Abby, Ollie, Finnie and Tango. None of them even hesitated scarfing the treat down.

And just in case this makes you think you really would love to have a dog that you could make pupcicles for, read this first.

Until next week!

A Marbleous Time

WELCOME BACK!

It is summertime again and that means the mermaids up to their crafty ways. Every week throughout the summer I will post one of our crafts for your viewing pleasure.
Here is a photo of our first craft:

Want to know how we did this? This is called paper marbling and it doesn't take a whole lot of special skill, but it does take some special ingredients and a fair amount of preparation.

The first ingredient is alum. This is a color binder. You have to first soak your papers in this and then dry them out and press them. The paper needs to be completely flat to marble correctly.

The next ingredient you need is carrageenan which is a powder made from seaweed moss. This is tricky to find. You can't find it at normal craft stores like Michaels or A.C. Moore. You have to go to more professional art studio stores or get it on line. Unfortunately no matter where you find it it will be a little bit pricey, but marbling will not work without it. For the precise measurements to mix the carrageenan go here. After you've mixed the carrageenan with water and put it in the blender you pour it into a tray where it can set over night.

After those first two items the rest is easy:

A pan or tray for the liquid,

a stack of your alum-treated paper,

a comb like this:

(I made mine out of wood and nails) or fork to spread the paint.

You will also need acrylic paints. (I used regular craft paint, but I had to water it down so that it was the consistency of orange juice or whole milk.)

Whew! The preparation takes a lot of work, but believe me, it is worth it.

Now for the actual marbling process:

1. Drip your paint into your tray with the carrageenan/water mixture.

If you've mixed the paint to the right consistancy it will float on surface and start to spread, making what marblers call "stones."

Keep dripping paint, adding more colors until you feel like stopping.

2. At this point you could lay down the paper right on these stones and you would get a really cool design that looks something like the paper on the right:

The paper on the left was made by swirling the stones around with a stick.

Another method is using a tool to "comb" the stones.

This makes the paint move into a feather like pattern, like this:

3. How ever you decide to marble, you can't mess up. Every pattern will turn out interesting. Now that you've arranged the paint the way you want it, carefully drop your paper on the surface of the water.

This is the exciting part. Wait for the edges to curl up and then gently pull if off and be amazed at the beautiful design you created.

Isn't this awesome? It is just like magic!

4. Now hang up your paper to dry.

After it is dry press it under some heavy books until it is flat. You can use your paper as wrapping paper, book covers, cards or whatever.

This was the most successful craft I have done with my mermaids. Everyone had a great time, and we never ceased to be amazed at the colors and variety of patters we made. I think the girls spent about two hours making more and more cards. The carrageenan mixture lasted for all of these cards, and we could have made many more. All you have to do is wipe the surface of the carrageenan with a strip of newspaper and you are ready to drip new stones. I was amazed that we could make light colored marbled cards even after we had marbled with black paint. This was so easy to do, even my four year old could easily create marbled paper all by herself.

After we were done the girls gave their patterns names like "swirled chocolate" and "seaside." Once they were dried and pressed we put them all in envelopes to use as cards. Maybe one day you will get one of our papers in the mail!

Just For Fun

The other day I bought this book:

It shows you how to make a skirt to fit YOUR BODY type--even "pears" like me--and has lots of examples of different styles: A-line, wraps, fitted...and how to make a skirt out of a vintage table cloth.

It has been, I must say, one of my wiser purchases.

I had some pretty fabric laying around (it had been calling out to me for weeks, pleading for me to lift it from its useless folded state into something with beauty and purpose) so I made this:

I had a little trouble with the zipper, which is why there are no photos of it...

But I though the pleats turned out well.
The only problem is that now that this skirt is finished it makes me want to go back to MY FAVORITE STORE IN THE WHOLE WORLD and start another one! (If you want to visit my least favorite store in the entire world, click here.)

All the photos were taken by the blue mermaid.

The Twelve Singing Princesses

What is the best way to ring in the new year?

By having a princess party, of course!Sophie and Syrena spent three weeks planning and scheming about this party and today they pulled it off. Here is how it went:

First everyone arrived in their gowns and had tea. (Amazingly, there were 12 girls in all, which I think is great because my all time favorite fairytale is the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Coincidence? I think not.)They each had a chance to wear a "real" crown to introduce themselves and tell us what their favorite present was for Christmas.

After tea, the princesses gathered for the activity. Since I'm in the business of raising girls with depth, these princesses had to prove to me that they were worthy enough to receive their own crown. They had three tasks to complete. Each task was associated with a value, and after they completed each task they would be given a jewel for their crown.

The first value was HONESTY.

The princesses were told that an Evil Sorcerer had stolen my gold coins from my treasure box and scattered them upstairs. I needed someone to find all of my coins. But who could I trust? Of couse the princesses heartily volunteered. But could they find ALL 21 coins and put them back in my box without eating them? Could they be HONEST?

Well, of course they can. They did a fantastic job and found all 21 gold coins. On to the next task.

For the second task they had to prove to me that they were PROBLEM SOLVERS. They were each given a small bag, and in each bag there was one puzzle piece. Their task was to assemble the puzzle together. But they could only use their own puzzle piece, and they couldn't trade or take anyone else's puzzle piece. The catch: they were not allowed to speak.

I should have made them assemble a smaller puzzle because they finished it so fast I didn't have any time to snap a photo. Those smarties. From this task I learned that they were not only PROBLEM SOLVERS, but that they could use TEAMWORK, and that they were CLEVER. All very important things to know if you are going to run a kingdom, of course.

The third and final task. This one was the most terrifying. If they could accomplish this task it would prove to me that they were BRAVE.

The above mentioned Evil Sorceror had secretly kidnapped 12 of my girls' stuffed animals and taken them to a high, dark, damp, spooky place [several girls started visibly trembling at this point]. This place was the.....

......Treehouse!

The stuffed animals were all tied up in the treehouse and the princesses had to rescue them.

The girls went up in groups of three and each brought back one rescued animal.

See the happy animals? Thank you, princesses!

For each completed task the princesses received jewels for their crown. They kept the jewels in their little bags:

Now they proved to me they were worthy to wear their crowns.

We passed out the crowns and the glue,

and everyone went to work.

In the middle of the craft someone started singing, "On the First Day of Christmas..." and they all joined in and sang the whole song. This only happens at princess parties, folks.

We had lots of sparkles,

lots of dimples,

and tons of fun.

Here they are with their finished crowns.

Afterwards they watched the movie Mulan.

(Now she's got some depth.)

Thanks, parents for letting me have so much fun with your lovely girls.

They are beautiful on the inside as well as on the out.

They were kind and gracious and sweet to each other the entire time.

What wonderful girls who will some day be wonderful women.