mentos and coke- science

I don't know how it came up, the mentos and coke thing. One day the kids and I found ourselves on you-tube watching videos of mentos and coke 'explosions.' We had to try it ourselves.

We don't do anything fun around here, so of course I had to turn this too into schoolwork. I made up some sheets that had the steps to the scientific process. I plugged in some of the information for them since this is our first time using this.

Title: Coke and Mentos

Question: What will the reaction be when a mentos is dropped in a bottle of coke.

Prediction: ________ (they all wrote their own) Bee: "It will spray really high."


Materials: a 2 liter of diet coke, 1 mentos

Procedure: Drop mentos in the open bottle of coke.

Data: (their drawings of the observations of before and during)

We took to the street for this one.


Conclusion: ________________ (they each wrote their own) Bee: "The pop shot up really high."


Every time I hear the word(s) You-tube, I think of that episode of The Office where Michael says, "I've gotta get those folks from you-tube down to film this!" Here's our video of our experiment with the neighbors out watching too. You can only see it here, it's not on you-tube.

picnic dress

I wanted to make Bee a new dress for the 4th of July. Her dress from last year still fits and she wears it often. I had to limit the number of wears per week at one point since she was so crazy about it. It's twirls, that's the excitement.

My sister in law gave me an entire suitcase full of fabric on our last visit with them. I am slowly attacking the fabric. There are so many projects waiting to be made! The skirt part of the dress is from fabric from her, the top is something I had on hand. I've been considering matching the dots with the plaid for some time. I decided to go for it.

So, this dress her her 4th of July dress. I know, not patriotic in anyway. It reminds me of a picnic blankets and the 4th sure makes me think of picnics. Whatever, I used fabric on hand and I've learned that Bee has to like the fabric if she's going to wear it. And it has to twirl.


I did not have a pattern, I made a sketch and just started piecing things together. That's my favorite way to sew. I made the sketch while standing in line at the library. The little girl in front of us had on a dress with gathering that I liked and based the top of this dress partly on. I'm sure she thought I was a weirdo.

Bee liked it. It was loose and comfy and it twirled. She wants a matching one for her doll. It was good for jumping...

and chasing....


and picking wild flowers. We went to a cook out at one of Hubby's cousin's house. Bee instantly found the Queen Anne's Lace growing by the corn field.


I am testing out another pattern for Jessica from Happy Together. I was so surprised today when I opened up the pattern and its a dress with a somewhat similar back! Bee's getting another new dress now! Since I'm testing the pattern, I'd better make two.... you know, so I can give her honest feedback.

favorite play dough recipe

Everyone has a favorite. Here's my favorite homemade play dough recipe. It's the one my mom made me when I was little. I've make it for my peeeps now too.

Mom's Play dough

2 c. water
3 T vege oil
1 T alum
Boil together. Remove from heat. Add:
1/2 c salt
2 c. flour
Knead. It's hot, but work it on the counter adding a bit more flour if needed. Add food coloring if desired. A friend suggested adding a few drops of vanilla and that does smell nice. This can be stored in an airtight container and keeps well for weeks.

I made up three batches of playdough this afternoon to take to the nature center. We are discussing the moons surface and I thought that might be a fun way for the kids to make a bumpy surface. They are going to think the moon is made of soft pink dough and smells like a salty ocean.

This is the recipe Bee's school sent home last year. I used it for the last batch since I was out of alum. It's made the same way.

Boil:
2 t cream of tarter
2 T cooking oil
1 c water
Add:
1 c flour
1/2 c salt

I will be interested to see what difference there is in the recipes. I can't tell a difference yet. Alum is used in preserving food while cream of tarter is a stabilizer, so I suspect the alum version will store longer. We will see.

Unrelated photo: I have so many from the holiday weekend to sort through.

pirate hat tutorial

Better late than never! Here's the pirate hat tutorial. You'll love this, most pictures are taken in the car! I apologize for the 'briefness' of this tutorial- as you can see, there was a long car trip involved.

Here are my pirates in their felt pirate hats.


I hope it goes with out being said that this tutorial is for your personal use only. Make a hat for your your little pirate, make one for your friend's buckaroo, send one to Samster Mommy's tutu drive. Just don't plan on making them to sell. I sell these hats of etsy. It wouldn't be cool if you did too.

Ok, so you will need 2 pieces of felt for the hat body. This hat is bigger than a sheet of craft felt. You'll need to buy the felt by the yard. I just free hand the shape. This hat is 10 inches high and 19 inches from end to end. Here's the general shape.

You will need a second color of felt for the details on the front. This also will need to be felt from the bolt. To make the band, I trace the top of the hat on the second piece with pencil, then cut about 3/4 inch below that line and again 1 inch below that.

Stitch the band in place about 1 inch down from the top of the body of the hat. This hat can be made on the sewing machine or sewn by hand. If you are sewing in the car, you'll probably need to sew by hand. If you are sewing in the car with some machine, please let me know about it. Wouldn't that be great.

Trim up the ends when it's all stitched on.

Band sewn on. I actually don't think it's sewn on in this picture, but lets pretend it is.

Now, you'll need a skull and cross bones. You could probably make crossed swords or a ship shape, or something similar. Here again is the skull and bones laid on my cutting board so you can see the size better.

I usually just draw an x on the felt and then add the bone 'knobs' as I cut it out.

Here's the general shape of the skull.

Each one is a little different. All pirates are.

Stitch on the face. I usually use my air erase marker to draw on the face before stitching. Today, I drew on with pen and used that as the backside.

You can use embroidery thread or plain old black thread. Again, each face is different. I used to full in the eye ball with black. I've tried a number of different faces. I'm happy with this guy now.

Oh I'm home! Back to the sewing machine. Sew the two pieces of felt together.

The red lines below show where to sew. You'll end up sewing close to the edge. Check your seems when you're done to make sure you caught both pieces of fabric in all areas.


Make sure to leave the bottom hole open for your little matey's head.

Arrrg! You may find yourself making a whole costume next!



Why not add a felt eye patch?


If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Again, I hope you use this tutorial to make a pirate hat for your little one and one for the tutu drive going on right now at Samster Mommy. The Princess Alexa Foundation is a great cause and I'd love to see a whole lot of pirate hats heading their way!

I'd also love to see pictures of this or anything else you make using a tutorial found here.

getting closer- marinated mushrooms

My sister and I have been trying to replicated a marinated mushroom recipe for some time. My stepmom died several years ago and with that, we lost several recipes. The two specifically that I've been looking for are these delicious marinated mushrooms and a yummy baked Alaska. She had dozens of cookbooks and hundreds of issues of cooking magazines. Many pages were marked in some way. I presume she just knew which place to look for each recipe. We did not.

So anyway, my sister and I have tried out a few recipes for the mushrooms without luck. I think I got pretty close this weekend. Hubby is not sure how I can remember something that I haven't tasted in a good number of years, but I do remember. However, I do remember them looking less yellow. The marinate they sat in I thought was more clear.

Marinated Mushrooms

1/2 c red wine vinegar (I've seem recipes that call for cider vinegar)
2/3 c olive oil
1 t oregano
1 garlic clove crushed
1/2 t salt
1/2 t sugar
1/2 t pepper
1 pound mushrooms
1 t lemon juice
1 t basil
1 bay leaf

Mix all the ingredients together. Marinate mushrooms at least overnight. I thought the second day was even better!

I can't wait for my sister to make them and see what she thinks. Are we getting closer?

edited to add:  we found it!  We found the actual recipe!  It slipped out of a recipe book on a tiny scrap of paper as my sister was moving old cookbooks. We were close!

Mary Beth's marinated mushrooms:
1/4 c red wine
1/2 c olive oil
1 garlic clove crushed
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 pound clean, mushrooms (halve if necessary)
2 t lemon juice
1 t Worcestershire

Marinate overnight.  Devour the next day.  Don't eat them all, you'll have a bit of a belly ache.  Been there, done that.

raw sugar

I had hoped to have the pirate hat tutorial up today, but we are traveling.... it didn't get done before we had to leave. I am not sure if I can do what I need to do on my in-laws computer... it might have to wait until we get home.

Really, one more thing I have to worry about and buy a healthier version of? Crud.

I friend sent me this link. It made me buy this:


It's raw sugar. It's made locally by the same folks we buy our meat from. I guess I need to make cookies and test it out. I'll take any exuse to make some cookies. Thanks Melissa!

pickles

Oh yum, let the home canning begin. This week it was pickles. These cucumbers were from my neighbor Abbey's house. They were cut with this mandolin and canned in this canner and used the jars given by Bee's last years preschool teacher (Thanks Susan!) so I'm taking ownership here. No really, I only wish I could grow this many cucumbers.

They got sliced and put in the prepared jars.

These are bread and buckle pickles. The mix was cooked then added to the raw cucumber slices.

The lids are placed on and processed for 5-10 minutes.

Then you wait for the lids to pop. It's such a happy noise.

These bread and butter pickles only needed to set 24 hours before they were ready. I think we opened them at 20 hours and had the first jar gone at 20 hours 20 minutes. We'll be making these again for sure.

junes donated item-

I've been looking for a place to make my donation for June. It's almost the end of the month and I was without a place. I read about this idea Here on Samster Mommy (another one of the blogs I follow like crazy) to donate costumes to the Princess Alexa Foundation. What a great idea!

I'm sending off a few of these pirate hats to Natasha at Samster Mommy so she can include them in the BIG box of donations that she is collecting. The Princess Alexa Foundation donates dress-up clothes to seriously ill children. What a great idea.

There is still time if you'd like to donate handmade costumes or even store bought ones. Store bought costumes can be donated anytime through the Princess Alexa website. The mailing address is available there. If you'd like to send handmade costumes to Samster mommy, here is the post with information on that. She is calling it a tutu drive, but she's taking any costumes really. I here for the boys!

If you'd like to make a pirate hat to send, stay tuned here for an exclusive tutorial.