Repurposing Day One: Boxes and Medicine Bottles

        I have found lots of useful things in my recycling  and thought I might share them with you.  I know boxes aren't very creative, but they are stackable and worth mentioning. But medicine bottles have lots of capabilities.  They are air tight so they can hold paint without it drying, which I have been pleased to find out. The only disadvantage is that they are hard to decorate.

(My mom got a bunch of mini first aid kits for free with coupons, and she gave them to me.)

Maddie

Story Books

We were bored one day and I needed a way to entertain my little brother and sister.  I went onto Microsoft Word and we made up a story.  I typed up a list of directions for us to follow:

1. type/make up a story (let the kids make up most of it no matter how crazy it gets)
2. gather supplies
3. illustrate
4. clean up
5. let the pages dry (if you painted them)
6. show everybody

Our story turned out really cute.  Here it is:

An Adventure in the Pool

One day Tom and Abby went to the pool.  They put their swim suits and sunscreen on and jumped into the pool.

Then all of a sudden the slide turned into a scary sea monster!

 All of the pool noodles turned into swords and we fought off the sea monster.

 

Then the tubes turned into canoes and the pool turned into a river. We went on a ride down the river.

Then nine crocodiles came out if the water. We were scared but then we fed them fish and they became our friends and pets.

The river turned into the ocean.  Our canoes turned into pirate ships and we followed a map to the treasure.  Tom had a telescope to look in the ocean and he found a bottle with a message in it. 

The message said: I hope you guys had fun a the pool but now its time to go home.  

Love Mom.

I hope this becomes a fun summer activity!  Another fun story game is Fortunate, Unfortunate.  One person is fortunate and the other is unfortunate.  Fortunate begins the story with once upon a time...Then unfortunate says something bad that happens in the story.  Then fortunate says something good and it goes on and on until you decide to stop.

Maddie

Amazing Hot Glue Glitter Dots

Can you believe these all these are made of is glue and glitter! They are super easy and super cute and great for sticking all over hair flowers, headbands, scrapbook pages, birthday cards, binders, tissue boxes, mirrors, ooh a glass vase would be cool with them stuck all over...  These are actually a knockoff from some that I got at Hobby Lobby:

 Here's how you can make your own.

Now its time to decorate tiara's or some other cute thing!

Maddie

Cookie S'mores

Our surplus of graham crackers and Hershey Bars has run out.  All we have left are marshmallows.  So I came up with the great idea for making cookie S'mores.

 

The Graham Cracker Recipe:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Whisk together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder and baking soda; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine, brown sugar and honey until light and fluffy. Stir in the dry ingredients alternating with the milk and vanilla. 
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  On  parchment paper roll the dough out. Divide into rectangles using a knife or use a cookie cutter.  Mark a line down the center of each one by pricking it with a fork (or go crazy and prick it all over like me). For a cinnamon flavored cracker, sprinkle with a cinnamon sugar mixture before baking.
4. Transfer the parchment onto a baking tray. Do not individually transfer each cookie, the dough is too fragile (unless you refrigerate the dough).  Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven till edges are brown.  If you under bake them, they turn out soft, not yummy and crunchy.  Remove from baking sheets to cool on wire racks.

         The original recipe said to refrigerate the dough overnight, but I didn't refrigerate it at all and it was fine. The wheat really gives it that graham cracker taste, but you could use less. In some of the recipe reviews, they substituted wheat germ for wheat flour and said they tasted great.  These aren't exactly like the store brand but are still really good.  They are great as a snack and in milk.  When eating them as a snack, I think I like homemade ones better, but nothing beats store bought crackers when it comes to milk.

The cookies don't spread much when they are baked, so leave them on the parchment you cut them on.

I pricked mine randomly, but 3 pricks down the center looks good.

Here's the awesome tool I rolled out my dough with by The Pampered Chef

Now for the chocolate cookie.  These would be much better with chocolate chips to make it more s'more-y.

Soft and Chewy Chocolate Drops

Ingredients:

3 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter

3 Eggs

1 tsp. Vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350.  Microwave unsweetened chocolate and butter in bowl on high for 2 minutes or until butter is melted.  Stir chocolate till it is melted.  Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer.  Stir in the sugar, then eggs and vanilla.  Add the flour and mix well.  Shape dough into one inch balls 2 inches apart, on parchment paper, or a greased baking sheet. Bake for 7-10 minutes toll the inside is no longer like dough.  Cool on cooling racks.  

Now its time for the yummy part.  Roast a marshmallow and sandwich it between a cracker and cookie.  Or you can microwave a marshmallow on a cracker (like I did), but it makes the cracker soft.

Amy Atlas Style Birthday Party

        This Birthday party was inspired by the ever amazing party designer, Amy Atlas.  This party's theme was cookies n' milk, and the three flavors of milk.  We had a large assortment of color-flow cookies, cupcakes and handmade white chocolates (we put chocolate in a heart mold). We didn't end up cutting into the cake at all because we were already on sugar highs anyway, and there were way too many goodies.  At my sister's party, an hour later, only one person ate the cake (we reused my cake for her party). The big paper poppies are from Martha Stewart. The only difference is that we bent the edges over.

 

In the background we filled pink present bags with tissue paper and flowers.  On either sides of the table we have 3 kinds of milk. 

         The cake is covered in marshmallow fondant with a ribbon for the border and gumpaste daisy's.

 Mini Cupcakes served on a silver platter.

Royal icing butterfly cookies.

 

Molded chocolates 

We covered a box in brown paper to make the desserts at different levels.

We drank milk from great grandma's fancy glasses that we found in the garage.

We got so sick of sugar!

Maddie

T-Shirt Bracelet

I actually got this Idea from V and Co., but she makes hers a little different and I like this way better.

      

Nope, they are not braided, these cute bracelets are finger knitted.  And all you need to made them is an old t-shirt.  Even little kid shirts will work, they will just make less bracelets. 

Tip: If you have a cute shirt but there is something on the front, cut around it or use just the back.

Materials:

• old t-shirt
• rotary cutter (or scissors)
• rotary mat
• hot glue gun
• fingers

Keep repeating steps 7 and 8 until it is wrist sized.  You might want to make it smaller than usual because they stretch.

Triple knot it, and trim the ends off.  Put hot glue or another glue around the knot.

This is why I glue the ropes together, not tie them.

A Gallery of Cakes

Some of these were done a long time ago when we weren't very experienced.

 Fathers Day Tie Cake (my mom made this one)

   Volcano Birthday Cake  (my mom made this one too)

4th of July (the whole family helped here)

Frosting and Fondant Ballerina

My mom's ballerina (I still made the head)

A Cake I entered in the Fair

Cupcake with a scrapbook paper wrapper.

Basket weave white rose cake

This purse is made up of two 8 in. cakes with the 

ends cut off and frosted vertically.  The 

flowers are made of marshmallows cut with scissors.
The handle was black licorice and the flower centers were candy.

 This was for my brothers scout banquet (he was supposed to make it but it was almost all me).  We won the lamest award: smoothest icing.  The banquets theme was scouts around the world (the flag in the front says scouts around the world although it looks like scouts recycling).

Fondant covered with gumpaste carnations

 A sewing cake for my mom for mothers day.
(Check out my blog post)

This is my prized cake. I made it last year and still have it in 

a box in my closet (it is Styrofoam)

It is fondant covered with gumpaste flowers.

It took me around 13 hours to finish.

I hope you enjoyed it and were inspired!

Keep Crafting, Maddie