Chocolate Covered Bananas Slices! by Brooke

hello, everyone! so I love chocolate covered bananas, but I can never finish a whole one, so I made chocolate covered banana slices! They are so easy to make, and they are delicious! so the first thing I did was cut up a banana into slices and put them on a paper plate. then I took a bowl and put chocolate chips in it and melted it in the microwave. (30 second intervals so the chocolate doesn't burn) then once the chocolate was melted I took a banana slice and dropped it in the bowl then took a fork and covered it in chocolate, then took the fork and scooped it out and put it on a paper plate.then put them in the freezer for 30 minutes then ate them! they were too good! and super easy to make!



one year ago today: corn husk wreaths
two years ago today: decorate your outlet covers

California Roll...by Brooke

This kid amazed me with her mad sushi rolling skills! Who knew (or my new favorite word from Candy "whodaknew")?

She bought me a "sushi kit" for Christmas (because she is addicted to sushi and every time we go to lunch that's what she wants...so my "gift" was to be able to make it at home with her) - all the kit has in it is a rolling mat and a small instruction pamphlet. I had my doubts.

I made sticky rice in my rice cooker (I've found that medium grain white rice is the way to go to get it good and sticky!),  once it was cooked spread it on a cookie sheet to cool, then sprinkle with white vinegar. Meanwhile Brooke sliced cucumber, avocado, and imitation crab legs in long thin strips.

I didn't help her at all - just stood back and observed. Apparently from watching the restaurant guys making this for so long she knew just what to do. Put down a sheet of nori (I found this at our regular grocery store in the Asian ingredient aisle) on the mat, cover with a layer of sticky rice, spread with cream cheese (optional), layer the veggies and crab, roll up tight using the mat, and slice. Seriously, look how professional this looks!

Impressive, right? Aunt Jill was lazy and made herself a "deconstructed" bowl of california roll hahah. Skipped the nori and the rolling and just put all the ingredients in a bowl :). Tastes the same, but nowhere near as pretty!


one year ago today: short hairstyle ideas

Caramel Apple Pie with Crumb Topping

I forgot to take a picture until there was only
one slice left! Just trust me that it was pretty :)

Brooke and I had another "Chopped" competition - this time we got to pick whatever we wanted to make for dessert instead of pulling ingredients out of a hat like last time (click here for that post). She made an oreo cheesecake with mousse topping and I decided to make a cherry pie. We went to the store for supplies and what do you know, our little grocery store didn't carry cherry pie filling, or any cherries for that matter - so I switched to apple. Instead of making my own filling I went with store-bought apple pie filling and doctored it a little by adding a bit of lemon juice and some cinnamon. I wasn't being lazy not making my own - I just had the rest of the meal to make and didn't have much time! I will post Brooke's dessert later and you can guess which of us won... for now here is my pie:


Ingredients:

• unbaked deep dish pie shell
• 2 cans apple pie filling
• 1/2 cup caramel topping
• lemon juice and cinnamon (to doctor the pie filling and make it taste more homemade)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup flour
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon sugar (I used raw turbinado sugar - it's crunchier)

Spread 1/4 cup caramel topping in the bottom of an unbaked deep dish pie shell, topped with the doctored apple pie filling.

In a separate bowl combine 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup flour, and 2/3 cup brown sugar. Mix together with a pastry cutter, food processor,  or your fingers until crumbs form. Sprinkle evenly over the pie filling and then sprinkle on 1 Tablespoon of sugar over top of that.

Bake at 375' for 50 - 60 minutes until done - watch that the crust doesn't burn. If it gets too brown cover the edges with strips of aluminum foil. After you remove from the oven drizzle another 1/4 cup caramel over the top. Let cool.

DIY Bubble Maker

Hello, everyone, it's Brooke! today I was super bored and decided to ty this DIY bubble maker! So the first thing I did was cut the bottom off of a water bottle, then I took an old sock and put it over the part I cut. then in a bowl, I put a couple squirts of dish soap and water and mixed that. then I went outside and dipped the end of the water bottle with the sock in the mixture and then blew on the nozzle of the water bottle and made bubbles!!!! See sounds easy and is easy! it took like 5 minutes!!  hope you have fun with your bubble maker! see you next time! -Brooke

                                           

DIY Decorated Phone Charger by Brooke

Hello, everyone! For this Friday I have a DIY phone charger for you guys! it's super easy and fun! So I have many siblings and they always steal my charger! it makes me so mad. All of our chargers look the same. boring and white. So I finally got so sick of people stealing my charger, I decided to decorate it. I took some pretty nail polish then painted a side then let it dry. painted another side. then let it dry! it took a long time but now no one steals my charger. so you guys need to try this out if you don't want people stealing your charger or if you don't want your charger plain and white!

Brooke makes Fluffy Slime

Brooke and I had a very busy weekend when I was in town for my sister's wedding - I thought it'd be a relaxing few days not cooking or doing dishes but I was wrong. Very wrong hahaha. B spent the night and we made muffins, cupcakes with homemade frosting, chopped salad, (all will be upcoming posts!) and this fluffy slime. I didn't help her with the slime, this is all Brooke...make sure to watch the whole thing - my favorite part of this video is almost at the end when she talks about glitter, check out the look on her face hahaha :)

She wrote out the directions in addition to telling them in the video:

1). In a cup add 1 teaspoon Borax to one cup water. Set aside.
2). In a big bowl combine
     1/2 cup shaving cream
     1/2 cup foaming soap
     1/2 cup white elmers glue
     1 Tablespoon cornstarch
     food coloring and glitter optional
3). Add mixture from the small cup into the big bowl slowly. Knead into a dough that doesn't stick to
     your hands.

Kids Craft...Brooke makes bath bombs

Brooke and I went to the mall and she bought a bath bomb (which was way too expensive!); we decided to try making them and found out they are really easy and the ingredients aren't costly (so why are they so expensive in the store?!). Watch how cute she is:

I searched online for instructions - this is the one we settled on. Click here for the original post. 

Homemade Bath Bombs, makes two large size or 3-4 "Easter Egg" size depending on your mold (you can easily double or triple)

4 oz. baking soda
2 oz. corn starch
2 oz. citric acid 
2 oz. Epsom salt
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons water
1 teaspoon essential oil 
1 1/4 teaspoon oil (I like coconut or olive oil here)
1-2 drops food coloring (optional)

In a bowl combine the dry ingredients (the first four listed above). Whisk to remove any clumps, corn starch tends to be clumpy. In a small glass jar stir together the wet ingredients (the last four ingredients listed). If you're using coconut oil, give it a quick melt in the microwave or stove top first so it will more easily combine with the other ingredients. Slowly pour the liquid mixture in with the dry mixture, whisking as you go. If you see the mixture fizz or foam, you may be adding the liquid too quickly. Once all the wet ingredients are combined with the dry, take a small amount in your hand and squeeze it together. It should stick together fairly well in one or two big chunks. If it's still too powdery to hold together, just add a tiny bit more water and mix until it does hold together. 

Fill molds and let them set for a few minutes to harden a little, then carefully remove from the molds and let air dry for a few hours or overnight. 

Note: Brooke and I used a giant ice cube ball mold but after making these I have been seeing instructions everywhere and all kinds of molds are used - I've seen muffin tins, ice cube trays for little ones...look around and see what you have that can be used for a mold if you don't want to purchase actual molds!

Silhouette...by Brooke

Here's another art project Brooke did in school and I love (click here to see the mosaic picture she made) - once again I'm including how she made it in her own words:


so the first thing i did was take a long piece of white paper then drew boarders on it. then i took water color paints and put all the colors on the background! our teacher told us to do warm or cool colors (warm= red,orange,yellow***cool= blue,green,purple) i chose warm colors. then i took a black piece of paper and cut out the object i wanted the shadow to be. then i pasted my shadow/black paper cut out on the piece of paper!



Her inspiration was the movie "UP" so she cut out the shape of the house, balloons, and strings from black paper and glued it on after the base piece of paper was dry - she also added a few circles of black on top of the balloons which gave it dimensions but she was tired of writing directions so left that part out hahah. Good tip about using warm or cool colors. Another great kid craft!

Brooke's Tip to get Curly Hair

Brooke stayed over the other night and did this to her hair - it's such a good idea I thought I'd share for today's post. When her hair is wet she divides it into 3 big sections; then divide each section in half and twist the entire length pretty tightly into a long coil and hook the 2 halves together at the bottom with a hair rubber band. You'll have a total of 6 coils. After completely dry (she slept with them in) remove the bands and gently finger comb the coils loose. Look how pretty! My hair is just a little too short (that's an understatement haha) to do this, but if you have long hair give it a try - really easy and cute.

Funky Pumpkin Decorating...starring Brooke

Lisa sent me inspiration pictures for this project, she found cute crazy funky decorated pumpkins in a store and thought of me - love that, thanks Lisa! She sent a few examples and Brooke loved the idea so much she wanted to make one - watch the cutie show you how she did it:




I have been helping out my friend Ronda at her Stampin' Up studio (lots of punching, using the Big Shot die cut maker thingy, stamping, etc.)  - she has the idea for me to work on setting up a "seasonal display" area in her shop so I've been busy thinking about fun crafts to use in the display. This pumpkin turned out so cute I want to include it but Brooke used old paper that I've had forever to make her pumpkin and since this will be in the Stampin' Up studio I wanted to use current scrapbook papers so quickly remade the pumpkin...also full disclosure, the tape Brooke used didn't hold the buttons on the pumpkin and they fell off! You can still make it using her directions but use a different form of glue for any heavier things. This is my finished product:

I bought a standing flat wood pumpkin at the craft store for about $3. Trace the pumpkin shape onto whatever paper you want the base to be, and glue it to the pumpkin form. I randomly cut a triangle for the nose and a jaggedy mouth, make whatever shapes you want. I reused the stacked buttons held together with twine that Brooke made, and for the right eye I glued a large flat bottomed marble over a different piece of paper. Burlap ribbon is tied on the top to finish. Super fast and easy - maybe took 10 minutes top. Gotta like that :)

Brooke makes soap

First of all, today is Brooke's birthday so "HAPPY BIRTHDAY B!!" Let's see if she checks the blog today LOL!


She loves to make soap - this is the first time she has done it though with no help from me and I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. Yes I also love to make soap, but within reason...this kid will make soap for hours and hours like the energizer bunny - there's no end to the soap making! But now that she can handle the hot liquid soap and pouring it into the molds by herself then hey, Aunt Jill is totally fine with her making it all day if she wants (or until the supplies run out hahah!).

Watch this video to see her teach how she does it...such a funny girl, love her :)



This is not hard to do, it just requires adult supervision since you melt the soap in the microwave and then need a steady hand to pour it into the molds. I cover the surface she's working at but really it's just soap and clean up is pretty easy.

I chunk up a big brick of soap I get at the craft store, it comes in white opaque and clear. Put some in a big glass measuring bowl and micro until it's melted. Then add color and scents (a little goes a long way). They have lots of different dyes you can color it with and scents, and of course lots of choices for molds. You need to work quickly as the soap starts to set up right away, get it into the molds and then pop them in the freezer until it hardens up, then release them from the molds. Easy.

Usually I spray the molds with non-stick cooking spray but not always - some molds are harder than others but it'll come out with a little patience. We like to layer the colors by pouring some soap into the mold and letting it get hard, then add more melted soap in a different color on top of the first. Just experiment to see what you can come up with - if it doesn't work then just re-melt it and try something else.

Good, clean fun!

Matching Game

Got the idea for this simple easy game here, I saw it and thought of my niece who wants fidgets and things for her new job (click here for the fidget stress balls project) - all you need is a sheet of foam and some self adhesive foam shapes. 

Cut the foam sheet into 3"x2" squares (or whatever size you want), I made 16 squares but you can make this as big or small as you want. Stick matching pairs of foam shapes to the squares (so you have a pair of every shape, same color) making sure you can't see the shapes sticking out from underneath when you turn them over. 

That's it. Now you have a memory/matching game - turn all the squares over with the shapes turned down, and take turns turning over 2 squares, if you get a match then you get to go again. If not a match turn the 2 squares back over and the next person goes - hopefully remembering where they saw a match if they draw the other one. Keep playing until all the pairs are matched, person with the most pairs found wins. Brooke and I also played go fish with the squares - play around with them and see what else you can come up with! 

We put the squares into a manila envelope that Brooke decorated with a couple shapes and wrote "matching game" on it. So cute. Then mailed it off to her sister - another good thing is this is a super lightweight game, only cost me 2 stamps to mail it!

Brooke showing how to play, she staged turning
 over a matching pair first thing :)

everyone likes to play haha, it's not just for kids!

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Banana Muffins

Normally I make this batter into muffins but Brooke wanted to just make it into a loaf so we went with that - it's all the same really. Not my normal banana bread recipe but it turned out good...especially since the kid added a bunch of chocolate chips to the batter! It doesn't make a lot which is kind of nice sometimes, just enough to make one loaf or about 12 muffins.

BANANA MUFFINS

          cream together:   1/2 cup shortening
                                      1/2 cup white sugar
                            add:    2 eggs
after mixing well add:   3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas
                    then add:    1 1/4 cup flour
                                      1 teaspoon salt
                                      1 Tablespoon baking powder

Put batter into a greased loaf pan, or spoon equally into greased muffin tin. Bake at 350' for 20 minutes (for muffins, for the bread I can't remember how long it baked so watch it - maybe 45 mins?).

Note: Brooke added about a cup of chocolate chips to the batter before putting it into the pan...

mushing up the bananas in her hands - she was grossed out and liked it at the same time!

Chopped Baking Edition - Niece vs Aunt

Brooke and I had our own version of a "chopped" bake-off yesterday - have you ever seen the show where 4 chefs get a "mystery basket" of 4 random ingredients that they have to turn into an amazing dish that they are judged on (and chopped if theirs isn't the best)? For our competition we wrote a bunch of individual ingredients on pieces of folded up paper and put them in a bowl, then we both drew out 3 ingredients that we had to make a dessert with. Some of our potential choices were oreos, strawberries, bananas, caramel, cinnamon - things I already had on hand. She drew rice crispies, m&ms, and strawberries; I got graham crackers, honey,  and chocolate chips. The rule was to come up with the idea of what we wanted to bake, no searching online for ideas, and then we could go online for a basic recipe only after we declared what we were making - no changing your idea once it was stated. The judges were my sister, niece Macey, and Dave.

I made a 9" scone using all of my ingredients and it was nasty...didn't help that I put it in the oven and forgot to set a timer - and it was plenty overdone, ugh. Macey said "Aunt Jill you're a great cook and baker but this is the worst thing you've ever made" HA. Oh well.

Brooke however made mini cheesecakes and a chocolate bark that was actually, surprisingly, good! I have no idea how she pulled that off! The bark was really good, so good that I'm going to share her "recipe" with you - I absolutely won't tell you how I made the disastrous scone though LOL! On a piece of parchment paper she spread melted chocolate chips (microwave 30 seconds at a time until melted), topped with everything under the sun - rice crispies, m&ms, andes mint bits, etc... - then spread more melted chocolate on the top. Put in freezer until firm and then break into pieces. Everyone loved it!


We had a great time playing Chopped, and the kid totally beat me fair and square! Brat ;)

Decorating Notebooks by Brooke

School is about to start for Brooke, watch her get all crafty decorating her composition notebooks in anticipation - especially watch the "outtake" part at the end when she calls washi tape "washing tape", it's cute. Enjoy!



2022 update - why do my old videos keep disappearing?!

Copycat Purple Drink

So Brooke loves to order the new "purple drink" - why isn't there a catchier name haha? - at Starbucks so I thought I'd surprise her and see if I could figure out how to make something similar when she visited me the other day.  I found the ingredients they use online but no amounts or directions are given, so as always I just winged it - Brooke tasted my very first attempt and after sipping, thinking, sipping, thinking, I asked if it tastes like theirs and she said nope, it's better. Yay! We did tinker with it a little bit to try to get it exactly like theirs but I kept thinking "why are we working to make it taste not as good?" LOL. We got close to the original by adding more tea and sweetener, but I liked my first batch and am sharing that recipe with you :)

ingredients:
.Tazo passion tea - I steeped 4 teabags in 2 quarts of hot water for a couple hours on the counter. Remove teabags and refrigerate until ready to use.
.vanilla soy milk
.blackberries
.vanilla coffee syrup - I couldn't find this at our grocery store so made it at home, see below for recipe.


directions:
In a shaker jar with tight lid I mixed equal parts tea (1/2 cup) and vanilla soy milk (1/2 cup). Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of the vanilla syrup and 4 blackberries. Shake to blend, the berries will break up a little. Serve over ice.

I found a recipe for vanilla coffee syrup here. I only made half of the recipe: boil 7 ounces of water with 3/4 cup white sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar, and half of a vanilla bean if you have one (if you don't that's ok, just add another teaspoon of vanilla extract after boiling). Boil for about 5 minutes, remove from heat and add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (2 if you didn't use vanilla bean). Let it cool before using in the drink recipe, refrigerate the rest. Note I have been using this in my coffee all week even though I finally broke my creamer/splenda habit and have been drinking my coffee black for a couple months now - but it's really good and I can't resist using the syrup!

here she is sipping and thinking, sipping and thinking...such a cutie.