Summer - 7/12 - The Idea Room

Silly Putty

Sorry it took so long to repost…but I have been super BUSY today finishing several projects (and reading all your comments) that were only half finished! I am so excited to share them with you in the coming days.

I also have some awesome GIVEAWAYS. You won’t want to miss it…I PROMISE!

We recently made some silly putty for each kid for one of our summer activities. It was a big hit! It was so simple…anyone can make this and have it turn out! I promise!

Here is the recipe:

1. Take a small mixing bowl and add 2 Tablespoons of Warm Water. Then add 2 Tablespoons of White Elmer’s School Glue (other glues might not work as well) and a drop or two of food coloring. Mix together thoroughly.

2. Sprinkle in 1 and 3/4 to 2 Tablespoons of Borax into your glue mixture while stirring constantly. Your mixture will thicken up quickly. When the borax is all added, gather the mixture into a ball and knead together for a few minutes till firm. That’s it!

Make sure to keep it away from the carpet! Store in a plastic baggie when not is use.

And for those of you opposed to the use of Borax…here is a different recipe for Silly Putty that uses liquid starch instead of Borax. We have tried both and personally I like the Borax recipe best!

Ingredients:
1 cup Elmer’s glue
food coloring, your choice of color (optional: coloring can stain!)
1 cup liquid starch
Pour glue and coloring in plastic container.

Stir until color is thoroughly mixed in.

Add starch a little at a time, stirring with a spoon or kneading with your fingers as mixture thickens.

Keep stirring until mixture holds together like putty.

Test with your fingers: if too sticky, add more starch in small amounts until mass is smooth and rubbery.

★Amy

July 31, 2010 · Filed under: Activities, Boys, Crafts, Kids, Summer Tagged with

Lemon Ice

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Many of you are already aware of my LOvE of all things icy and lemony. Remember this post for frozen lemonade? Well, I have been wanting to make lemon ice for a while and on a particulary HOT summer day recently the kids and I finally made some. We used this recipe from Woman’s Day.

It is SO easy! We cut some lemons near the top so that we could fill each lemon with as much lemon ice as possible. Then on the bottom of the lemon (where it will sit on the table) cut off a tiny bit so that the bottom of the lemon is flat. But not too much or you will make a hole in the bottom where your precious lemon ice may escape.

Then squeeze all the lemon juice out of your lemons and set aside the juice for later use. Then we used a spoon to scrape out the insides of the lemons. For the extra stubborn pulp we used our lemon zester and it worked like a charm. This is a great job for the kids to help out with.

Then simply follow this easy recipe to make the lemon ice.

*Recipe from Woman’s Day
3 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 cup lemon juice (we used 3/4 cup lemon juice)
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest

1. Mix water and sugar in a 2-qt saucepan; bring to boil over high heat. Boil uncovered, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice and lemon zest.

2. Pour into a 13 x 9-in. baking pan. Freeze 1 hour; stir. Cover; freeze 2 hours or overnight until firm.

3. Take your prepared lemon “cups” and then fill them with the frozen lemon ice.

Then ENJOY! Aren’t they so pretty? These would be great for a shower or party treat because they can be prepared beforehand and are so easy.

July 14, 2010 · Filed under: Recipes, Summer, Treats Tagged with

Sidewalk Chalk Paint

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We made some SUPER easy Sidewalk Chalk Paint the other day when the summer “boredom” hit.

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I have seen this all over the net and we finally got around to making it. We simply took 1/4 cup of cold water and mixed in a 1/4 cup of cornstarch. Then we added a **small** amount of food coloring to give it a little bit of color.

*(Do not add a lot of food coloring…after washing the green paint off the sidewalk, I noticed it left a very light stain behind…so use food coloring at your own risk)!

But other than that…it really entertained the kids for quite a while. We even ended up making another round of paint after they exhausted the first ones.

The paints looked really great when they dried. The cornstarch shows up and the paint has a chalky look to it. We will definitely be doing this again. I also would not recommend using the foam brushes like we did. Next time we will use the cheap paint brushes. The foam brushes were getting pretty ripped up from the rough surface of the cement.

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