Valentine Vanilla Pudding Cream Pie
Published 02.05.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (2)
By Marie LeBaron
This vanilla pudding pie will be the hit of the party as you tempt your guests with this heart shaped dessert!
Supplies for Vanilla Pudding Pie:
- heart shaped pan or muffin tins with pink cupcake liners
- homemade graham cracker crust
- vanilla pudding
- red food coloring
- whip cream
- Valentine candies
First, you'll get your graham cracker crust ready. See this recipe for Homemade Graham Cracker Crust. Mix 1-1/2 cups crushed graham crackers, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 cup melted butter, and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.
You'll press it into a heart shaped cake pan or into muffin tins with cupcake liners. Bake for 7 minutes and let cool completely.
Mix up your vanilla pudding, following the directions on the package. As you're whisking the pudding, add in 8-10 drops of food coloring. The more you put in, the less orange and more red/pink it will become. As you can see, mine is even a little too orange and I should have added a couple more drops.
Pour your pudding onto your cooled crust or into your muffin tins.
Using a spatula, spread and smooth out your pudding. Then place this is the fridge for a few hours to help it set up.
Once you're ready for your party, add a little more cream to the pie with whipped cream. I used whipped cream from a can so I could write with it as I placed it on, but you can make your own and simply pipe it with a frosting bag.
I also added a few m&m candies for a little flare. Who doesn't love chocolate, pudding, and pie?!! Enjoy this yummy Valentine Pudding Pie at your next Holiday gathering!
Free Vintage Valentines for Kids
Published 02.03.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (1)
Free Printable Vintage & Retro Valentines for Kids
Last year, we found the most adorable free printable valentines for kids created by current artists from around the web. (And this year we plan do a similar roundup once all the artists have posted their most recent valentine printables.) But lately I have been pining for the vintage and retro look of the sweet valentines of my youth in the 70s. These were colorful cards sold in box sets much like they do with Christmas cards.
So, I decided to do some searching and while the options are limited, I found three sources that have done a great job at collecting and uploading vintage valentines that you can then print out at home on card stock. So, without further ado, here are our favorites. Just go to these sites to get the enlarged versions of the artwork.
Hearts Atwirl is a website dedicated to curating vintage valentine cards from the early to mid 20th century. How cool, huh? Here are some of my favorite finds from there. I would definitely click over and peruse the extensive collection.
Vintage Holiday Crafts is another resource that you should check out. Here are my faves:
Lastly the folks at About.com created a very nice and extensive gallery as well. I've also plucked my favorites. But since these things are personal, I suggest you go on over and see if any strike your fancy.
Valentine Gift: Scented Pencils
Published 02.01.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (0)
We've written about Smencils before. They're scented pencils made of 100% recycled materials. But the kicker is that the scents are super special, not run-of-the-mill.
Now, the Smencil folks have upped the ante and developed special scented pencils for Valentine's Day. Better yet, they come topped with a heart charm and neck chain that detaches from the scented pencil. The special Valentine scents are vanilla cream, raspberry truffle, love candy, strawberry cream and chocolate mint-- yum!
This is a great (albeit a bit pricey) candy valentine alternative for your kids to hand out to their school mates.
Homepage picture by aussiegall
Dangling Garland Valentines!
Published 01.28.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (7)
By Brenda Ponnay
I've been on a bit of a garland kick lately so I decided it might be fun to incorporate my new love of sewing paper into a valentine! I like to call it the Amazing Expanding Valentine! Mostly because when you lift it out of an envelope it just grows and grows and grows. What fun it would be to receive and then hang up in a dreary winter window, don't you think?
Here's how you can make them too:
First you need to cut a bunch of hearts. I set up a smorgasbord of hearts in all different colors and sizes and let the kids pick and choose what they would like from the stacks of paper hearts. One by one each child would make her selection and stand beside me while I sewed the hearts together. They all loved this part. Some of the littler ones even sat in my lap.
Of course if you are not the sewing type, you don't have to sew the hearts together. You could use yarn or string and glue the string between two paper hearts. This would accomplish the same effect, minus the fun of hearing your sewing machine munch through paper.
After you have a string of five or six hearts now you can decorate!
Just set out some glitter, glue, sequins, stickers or stamps and let your kids go crazy.
When they're done, and the glue has dried, you'll have a masterpiece pretty enough to hang or mail off to Grandma!
Create Your Own FREE Printable Valentine
Published 01.22.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (0)
Now this is easy peasy!
The folks at Invys, an online design-it-yourself event invitation company, are providing a crafty tool for us all for FREE!
In a matter of seconds you can customize and personalize your very own valentine card and then they will email you the PDF to print out at home. I tested it out and it took 60 seconds from start to finish-- that's right, I timed myself.
Their Valentine Creation Tool uses WSIWYG (what you see is what you get) to change colors and add text. But, better yet, the original designs you can choose from are simple and refined. Thank you Invys!
If you are looking for more free printable Kids' Valentine cards look at what we dug up last year.
Simple Handmade Valentine's Day Cards
Published 01.21.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (7)
By Ellen Luckett Baker
Help your children make handmade cards this year with these easy assembly-line heart crafts. Even as someone who loves to make crafts with my children, I find Valentine's Day cards to be a chore. We always start with grand plans, but after my kids have made about 10 cards they lose interest, even when we start well before Valentine's Day. So I was looking for ideas that truly are easy but will make you feel good about creating handmade cards.
If you're little one is too young to sign her name, try using letter stamps or print her name on stickers and let her put them on the cards. If she can sign her name, but it's just too tedious for her to sign 20 cards, try making a custom styrofoam stamp like I did here. I know, you're re-thinking that long name now, aren't you?
All of these heart crafts can be made with recycled materials, so open up the recycling bin and start crafting!
Pencil with Felt Heart: Like to sew? Cut out two hearts from felt and sew them together with an opening for the pencil top. Let your kids place the hearts on the pencils and glue on a printed banner.
Accordion Paper Hearts: Simply fold your paper accordion-style five times and cut a half heart shape to reveal three hearts inside. Or try the opposite and make hearts like you would make paper dolls.
Cereal Box Bookmarks: Upcycle your cereal boxes to make these easy bookmarks. Here we used a rounded corner punch and a heart punch, then added some twine. You could use recycled materials for the hearts as well, making it a fully upcycled project.
Heart Potato Stamps: Cut a potato in the shape of a heart and stamp away. We used washable tempera paint on white card stock.
Heart Stick Puppet: With some paper, glue and a popsicle stick, you can make this sweet little heart puppet. We used the heart punch and added a face with pen. You could also add pipe cleaners for arms.
Pop-up Heart Card: My six-year-old enjoyed making these last year. We watched this video to learn how to make them, but we used regular paper as it is easier for children to fold than card stock. Here we added an extra red heart made with a paper punch to give some color to the plain white background.
Woven Heart Envelope: This one is a little more difficult, so I'd recommend it for third grade and up, but it has great results. The woven heart opens, so you can slip a note inside or add a hanger and make it into a basket for a small treat. You can find a nice tutorial with photos here. Just remember that you aren't really weaving, but rather making a woven pattern by slipping the strips into the strips of the other color.
Really Easy Kids' Valentines
Published 01.20.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (1)
Are you already plotting Valentine's Day cards and gifts? Or, is that just us?
If you know me, then you know my mantra is "little effort, high impact." I'm a big fan of recipes, projects, and just about anything that requires little effort, but delivers a big impact when eaten or presented, etc.
As such, for awhile I've been collecting ideas for kids' Valentine's Day gifts that are easy to make but that look like oh-so-much work. Trust us, these ideas are reallllly simple.
Homemade Chocolates
Homemade chocolates in heart and flower shapes are super simple and very delicious if you use the Wilton candy melts. You can choose from lots of colors like chocolate and red and they make lots of candy molds like hearts, roses, and even lollipops. You don't need to get all fancy and create a multi-colored chocolate masterpiece. Plain ol' chocolate candy wrapped in a treat bag with a pretty ribbon around it will hit the right note. (don't forget to buy the lollipop sticks). To personalize, attach it to a free Valentine's Day card or add a cute sticker to the bag.
Homemade Gummi Candy
If you already bought the candy molds or you're more of a gummi bears than chocolate person, consider making gummi hearts for Valentine's Day. I had no idea how easy it was until our own contributor Cindy Hopper showed us how to make homemade gummi candy on her own site. Look at how fantastic these are! All you need is flavored and unflavored gelatin (like Jello & Knox) and then package up a handful and tie a red ribbon around the treat bag.
Fruit Roll-Up Roses
All you need to make these edible fruit roll-up roses are fruit leather and a circle cookie/ biscuit cutter. Unbelievably simple to make and very impressive. Well done Jessica at Zakka Life!
Candy Cane Hearts
Along the same lines of playing with your food, Marie at Make and Takes deconstructs left over candy canes into food art or candy cane hearts. She also took the same strategy and applied it to making valentine messages from candy canes. Now, kids will need a lot of supervision on this food craft as it involves touching (aka bending) softened (and HOT) candy canes. You should definitely do the candy cane bending. I'm sure they'll be exhausted breaking apart the candy canes by that time anyway.
Matchbox Valentine Candies
Brooke at Inchmark is a lovely creative force and I just love visiting her site. Last year she filled empty matchboxes with valentine candies. I adore this craft because kids can do so much of it by themselves: empty the boxes, fill the boxes, cut the wrapping paper strips and decorate the boxes as well. Brava, Brooke!
Fortune Cookies for Valentines & Chinese New Year
Published 01.14.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (26)
By Cindy Hopper
If you are looking for a fun way to celebrate the Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day (both on the same day this year) give these fortune cookies a try!
Before starting the cookies make slips of paper to fill the cookies. Simply download, print and cut the paper into strips.
Fortune Cookie Papers for Valentine's Day
Fortune Cookie Papers for Chinese New Year
This simple recipe is adapted from Paula Deen. The butter or oil that is normally found in other fortune cookie recipes is missing, but I figured if Paula leaves out the butter it must be okay!
Fortune Cookie Recipe
2 egg whites
1/2 cup flour (sifted)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Makes about 12 fortune cookies
Instructions
Set oven to 400F degrees.
1) Place egg whites in a bowl and beat with electric mixer on medium speed until very frothy, almost soft peaks.
2) Add sifted flour,
3) Add sugar, almond, and vanilla then mix.
4) Stir in 2 tablespoons of water to thin batter.
5) Using a Silpat baking mat, parchment paper or un-greased baking pan place 1 tablespoon of batter on pan. (I liked the Silpat mat the best. I did not have a problem removing them from my un-greased pan. When I greased the pan the batter did not stay in a circle. Since the moisture content in the batter is high, it does make the parchment paper wrinkle slightly but it still worked.)
6) Working from the center in a circular motion, spread the batter into a 5 inch circle.
7) Start with two cookies. Once comfortable with the process more can be baked at one time. I was only able to ever bake two at a time. I used two pans and staggered the baking time so I had time to form the cookies.
8) Bake until edges are lightly browned. Mine baked for 6 minutes. Start watching closely at 4 minutes.
9) Working quickly, remove cookie from pan with a very thin spatula.
10) Flip the cookie over and place slip of paper on top.
11) Bring sides up and pinch together.
12) Next bend cookie over the edge of a cup. The whole process of forming the cookie should take about 10 seconds. Once formed place cookies in a muffin tin to help them keep their shape while cooling.
Then, package in some festive Chinese take out containers...
and you have a sweet way to celebrate!
NOTE: The cookies are VERY hot. It is easy to burn fingers on the cookies as they are being formed. Try wearing thin white gloves to protect fingers.
Hot Chocolate Spoons for your dipping pleasure
Published 01.07.2010 | Permanent Link | Comments (18)
by Marie LeBaron
As January is here and the cold wintry season is in full effect, we're warming up with some hot cocoa. But the best part is, dipping our Hot Chocolate Spoons into it! These spoons are easy to make and fun to eat, helping beat those winter blues!
Supplies for Hot Chocolate Spoons:
- spoons, plastic work best
- chocolate chips, regular and mini chips
- marshmallows
- coconut, shredded and sweetened
- peanut butter chips
- butterscotch chips
- crushed candy canes
- wax paper
- plate
Have your supplies out ready to go. Heat up your chocolate chips for spoon dipping first. Place a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Take it out and stir, then continue to heat it for 20 second intervals until melted.
Once your chocolate is melted, dip your spoon into the bowl. You'll need to stir it around and turn it over to make sure you've got it all covered in chocolate. Then set the spoon onto a plate covered in wax paper.
When you've got your spoons dipped, it's time to decorate them. For the snowman, place 3 marshmallows in a line down the spoon. I topped one with a peanut butter chip for the hat and a flake of coconut for the scarf. Then two mini chocolate chips get a tiny dip of melted chocolate on the bottom of them before you place it on the top marshmallow for the eyes. Cute!
We made a few different kinds of dipped spoons. One is dipped in melted peanut butter chips with mini chocolate chips all over. We call that one the "chocolate chip cookie" dipped spoon, and it is my favorite one dipped in hot chocolate! We also sprinkled coconut on one to look like snow. Melted mint chocolate with crushed peppermint on another, and a melted butterscotch chips spoon with drizzled chocolate on the top. Mmm, Mmm!
Once you've got all your spoons dipped and decorated, let the chocolate harden again. It goes by pretty fast if you place your waxed plate in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes. Then they're ready for dipping in hot cocoa, or even your hot milk. The snowman one was our favorite to dip. He went for a big swim in chocolate. He was going...
going...
gone!
Now this is one tasty snowman! Have fun dipping your snowmen spoons in chocolate!
Also, just wrap in cellophane and add a pink or red bow and you've got great Valentines Day gifts (not that we're thinking that far ahead or anything).
Decorate your Calendar with Event Stickers
Published 12.31.2009 | Permanent Link | Comments (6)
By Cindy Hopper
To get your New Year started off right Alpha Mom has a free little gift for you. We hope you will enjoy these stickers to help you and your children dress up your 2010 calendars!
Simply download and print on 1-up (non cut) sticker paper. This sticker paper can be purchased by the sheet at a copy shop. Cut out and place on your calendar. No worries if you can't find the sticker paper --- a glue stick will work. Keep the stickers handy by stapling in the back of your calendar!
Everyone here at Alpha Mom wishes you a very Happy New Year!
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About this column
This is a year-round Holiday column. Kids love Holidays. As parents we have come to appreciate how Holidays seem to help structure our lives. Plus, any excuse to have fun sounds good to us!
We'll admit it, now that we're parents, we secretly look for Holidays to celebrate and between National, Secular, Unofficial and Bizarre Holidays, we think there are enough days out there to keep us inspired every week.
This column will be a place where you can get inspiration for how to enjoy time with your kids. Crafting projects and ideas will be posted on Thursdays by our brilliant contributors (see below). Other fun ideas will be posted here throughout the week as the inspiration hits us!
About our Craft Contributors
Ellen Luckett Baker is the author of the long thread, a blog about handmade goods. She has always enjoyed making things, but the flexibility of staying at home with her two daughters along with the creative inspiration they provide has led her to craft on a daily basis. Combining her love of graphic design and sewing, she has created an Etsy shop selling machine embroidery designs and sewing patterns.
Ellen lives in Atlanta with her husband and two young daughters. She holds a B.A. in Art History and a Master's of Public Administration with a focus in Non-Profit Management.
Cindy Hopper was fortunate to be raised in a family who appreciated the arts. This background led to a Bachelor's Degree in Art Education. With a keen eye for design and color, Cindy has continued her love of art and is now passing her creative skills on to her three children. Cindy's family and friends are the beneficiaries of her passion for fun and meaningful creative projects. Cindy's personal blog, Skip to My Lou, has taken her love of a project to new levels. Postings keep the family busy -– from testing new recipes for holiday treats to designing and building floats for a neighborhood parade to making fabric rolls to hold crayons to creating themed parties. Cindy seems to have an unending supply of ideas for gifts, parties and rainy days.
Marie LeBaron is a 30 something stay at home mom in Utah. Before life as a mother, she graduated with a teaching degree in Early Childhood & Elementary Education, after which she taught four years of Kindergarten. After her first child was born, she decided to read books and sing silly songs at home. She misses the classroom, but she now gets to bring the fun and learning into her home and ours. You’ll see her kids a lot in these projects as they are her guinea pigs and for whom she's creative. You can follow more of her projects at her personal blog Make and Takes.
Brenda Ponnay is a stealthy secret agent who juggles parenthood to her adorable daughter by day and freelance graphic design by night. Whether it's painting, baking, drawing, making castles out of card board boxes or just doing the laundry with flair, Brenda Ponnay has finally discovered (at the ripe old age of thirty-six) that what really makes her happy is being creative every single day.
Brenda lives in Southern California with her husband, daughter, three cats and thirty-seven pet birds. You can read about all her crazy adventures on her personal blog: Secret Agent Josephine.
Disclaimer
This column is only for entertainment purposes. Any recommendations or information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for advice by a trained professional. For a full statement of our site policies, please click here.