google+ hangouts – Page 4

cooking, crafts, create, google+ hangouts, key stage 2, kids, monster

Bottle Lid Monster

Chaos writes:

8yo wanted to personalise his book bag so that he can spot it, at a glance, amongst all of the identical school book bags, piled high on the playground floor. So we made the most of the oven being warm from a baked potato supper, and positioned some plastic bottle lids on some foil on a baking tray.

Five minutes later, and as the ‘monster’ started to melt, we added some Hama (or Perler) Beads for a bit of colour, and they melted in beautifully. Bringing it out of the oven to cool (warning, it does get super-hot) we positioned the googly eyes (don’t do that too quickly as the eyes will start to melt too!) I pierced a hole with some scissors, and we added a key ring and out Bottle Lid Monster is complete and ready to adorn said book bag with pride!
We also thoroughly enjoyed a Google + hangout with this one too, featuring Maggy’s redtedart‘s bottle lid stamps, and ladybugs. Adele from Playful Learners bottle top Easter art, Anthea at Zingzingtree‘s bottle top flowers and people. Also Cerys’s beautiful bottle top owl, and a first – our anonymous blogger with Spanish Marbles, plus Kath’s KnittyMummy’s beer bottle photo badges.

For more Monster ideas, click here and for other bottle lid ideas click here. And for a fab Despicable Me Perler Bead classic click here.

Oh, and I’m on twitter.com/MoreKidsChaos too… Erm, and funnily enough on Google+, Facebook and Pinterest! Pop over to say hello x Like it? Pin it!
Ali also writes over on AGreenerLifeforus.com

crafts, google+ hangouts, halloween, key stage 2, kids

Stick Crafts – Shadow Puppet

Chaos writes:

Here’s a very simple stick craft we’ve been doing this week… great shadow puppets inspired by Chinese New Year this weekend:

You’ll need some sticks (!) from the garden, or as we do, collected on weekend walks by small children. Some black card, sellotape, a pencil, scissors and some ‘brads’ (the pins with bendy legs, I never remember what their name is!) Oh, and some coloured tissue paper or sweet wrappers. AND a torch if you fancy doing a shadow puppet show!

We drew the dragon ‘pieces’ out onto the black card – cut them out, and joined them together with the brads (we used a bit of plasticine behind the card, and pushed a pencil through to make the hole for the brad).

Attach the sticks with tape at the back and you’re ready to go! You’ll need a couple of characters for the shadow puppet show – standing behind a large white sheet – we dimmed the lights, shone the torch and tried them out. We made up some short stories for our characters and put on a fun silhouette show!!

Click the YouTube link to view the Google+ hangout hosted by Maggy Woodley from Red Ted Art and meet me Ali Clifford at the Stick Craft hangout with Anthea Barton from Zing Zing Tree, Kelly Innes ( Domestic Goddesque) and Liz Burton.

Don’t forget to head over to Red Ted Art and check out the links for all the crafts featured on the video:

I also write over on www.agreenerlifeforus.com 🙂

cooking, food, google+ hangouts, kids, life

Pizza the action

Chaos writes:

I seem to spend my whole time impressing other people’s children with my culinary skills…. little do they know! Tonight’s a case in point, 10yo has a playdate. Playdate says: “mmm, delicious pizza, is this HOME-MADE?!”

“Yes” I answer, “of course it is!”
“Wow, it’s the most delicious pizza I have ever had. My mummy is so lazy, she BUYS ours”. (apologies to all mums and dads who BUY their pizzas, seriously, I do that too….)

So, this is basically the easiest thing, bung all of the ingredients (300g flour, a tsp of dried yeast, tbsp sugar, 30g butter, 2tbsp milk powder, 1 tsp salt, 420ml water) into the breadmaker at 3pm, go on the school run, come back from school run, break the pizza dough into six pieces, shape into balls.

Make three pizza (I have proper pizza bases, nice and thin and crispy) couple of spoons of pasta sauce, rip up mozzarella ball, grated cheese, couple of olives if you’ve got them….

Freeze the extra three dough shapes, and use them in about a fortnight! (kids get bored of having pizza TOO often believe it or not…)

job done. Nigella, beat that. 🙂

2014 UPDATE for this recipe…. temporary glitch with the breadmaker (it started spewing out black smoke!) so we’ve been experimenting with using flatbreads and wraps as makeshift pizza bases – and these are SUCH a winner – spoon a couple of tomato pasta sauce, mozzarella, a few slices of mushrooms and some grated cheese, and pop in a hot oven for about seven minutes – sprinkle over a handful of rocket, and TOTAL WIN!

I joined Britmums to talk about vegetarian meals, both simple and fancy – click to watch the google+ hangout above.

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

This post is part of the #FaveFamilyRecipes Competition with BritMums and Tilda Rice. Every pack sold will provide a meal to an expectant mum in need in support of the World Food Programme’s Mothers Helping Mothers initiative in Bangladesh