Lunch: Hearts, Lady Bug, Tiger

Heart Pancakes:

For valentine's day, I made heart shaped pancakes - used some red to dye the pancake batter and then poured into a heart shape.  I overbrowned the first side so that when I flipped it, they were basically cooked all the way through.  This way, the second side stayed nice and pink (see the middle pancake).  

Vanilla yogurt with chocolate frosting shaped hearts (they just look like little turds to me...) and some colored sprinkles. 

and red grapes.

Lady Bug:

Circle cut sandwich with a slice of white american cheese for the "wings".  i freehand cut out little hearts.  The antennae are toothpicks with a raisin stuck on them.  

The red heart silicone muffin liner has fruit loops and a few sweet tart hearts I found in leftover halloween candy.

I free hand cut a heart out an apple half (a small cookie cutter would work too, but I don't have one!)

Tiger:

After the San Diego Zoo visit, the Little One was all about Lions and Tigers so I got this AWESOME sandwich cutter from amazon.  I used the cutter on fruit leather for the face and free cut the stripes for the body.  The tiger is sleeping in a bed of lettuce leaves (which my child will NEVER eat)

I peeled the clementine and just place it over the fruit, so that I could have tiger stripes :)

I also got some letters for spelling TIGER with her hummus, carrots and crackers.

This is BY FAR one of my favorite lunches and I'm really loving this sandwich cutter.  It's easy to use and has 4 different faces.  There is another face set that you can get to go with the body too....so many uses.  LOVE :)

I'm still not sure how good her lunches look when she actually sits down to eat them.  I walk her into class on Fridays for Lunchbox Club, so I know the sandwich stays up right for that part.  We have a lunch bag that allows her Easy Lunchbox to stay upright, but I still wonder...

Happy Creating!

Bendy Dolls: Accessories for the Garden

Last week, I showed you the chicken coop.

Today, I want to share apples, potatoes and the wheelbarrow.  

Making clay apples is pretty easy.  It's basically a round piece of clay with a brown stick in it :)

SoupIsGreen on deviantart has a basic tutorial if you need some help.

This Charming Stuff has a youtube tutorial for making the crate that is pretty straight forward.  I made one the same size as her instructions and it was waay too big for my bendy doll fairies.  The second one (shown here) is half the size of hers.  For reference, my sides are made from popsicle sticks cut in half (talk about tedious!) - I went out to later buy stir sticks in the wood section of the craft store.  It's worth it if you are going to make a few things, but cutting popsicles sticks if that's what you have on hand is totally do-able.

There are a dozen or so apples in there....

I also made a sack of potatoes.  Zooplies Miniature Haven has a wonderful printable to make these Prince Edward Island potato bags using real potato bag images :)  The above crate tutorial also talks about making potatoes!

Finally, I made a wheel barrow from a walnut shell half.  I had The.Hardest.Time cleanly cracking a walnut in half, so my suggestion is to rummage through the walnut bin at the grocery store (Christmas time is really good for those nut bins!) to find some that have naturally split.  There are also a bunch of "tutorials" that include freezing the nut, using a sharp knife etc - i think I tried them all, and none of them consistantly worked for me.  I got them in half (one side with extra bits) and used some pliers to break some pieces off until it was pretty clean.  That was the best I could do!

You can find a wheel barrel tutorial here.  I ended up filling it with some tiny silk leaves (½ in long!) that I bought ages and ages ago for some craft project I never got around to doing (the bag was still sealed!)  I wish I had aged the silver, but I'm sure that will happen pretty quick on its own!

Happy Creating!