How to Make a Spring Tree

May 23rd, 2013

spring-treeYou can make a beautiful spring tree for your entryway by attaching tissue paper flowers to a gnarly branch stuck into some dirt in a pot.

I happen to have a dead tree in my entry way, as you well know from my Thankfulness Tree. Those who follow me on Facebook also saw a dilapidated picture of oversized ornaments hanging from it at Christmas time. Ah, yes. Why don’t I just throw the darned thing out already? Because look! I just transformed it into a gorgeous spring tree! It makes me smile each time I pass by. (And my daughter was delighted, too. My husband just rolled his eyes.)

You can make tissue paper flowers with cookie cutters, and those come out more fancy than the simplified ones I’m going to show you here. Instead of using a cookie cutter, I grabbed the lid of a mayonnaise jar and traced around it on light and dark pink tissue paper. Make 4 circles with a pencil, then cut stacks of the tissue paper all at once to make this project go faster. (It’s actually easier to cut 6 or 7 layers of tissue paper than to cut one piece, because the paper is so flimsy.)

spring-tree-2

Now that all your circles are cut out, stab half a piece of pipe cleaner into the center of a stack of 4 or 5 pieces. Hook the pipe cleaner to make a lump so that the tissue paper doesn’t slide off the end. Now fluff up the tissue paper. Your flower is finished.

spring-tree-3

Make as many flowers as you like to decorate your tree. I used one large piece of tissue paper for light pink, and one for dark. I cut as many circles as I could, and I ended up with the amount of flowers you see in the picture.

 

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Posted in Fun Spring Activities | 6 Comments »

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Poem

May 20th, 2013

a-midsummer-nights-dreamMy 11-year-old son Stephen Evans wrote a poem to summarize A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare:

I will tell you a hilarious comedy,
The best I ever said.
Four lovers ran into the woods
And everyone ended up wed.

Theseus was the duke of Athens,
He would marry his love with grandeur.
Hermia’s father wanted her to marry
Demetrius, but she loved Lysander.

Theseus gave Hermia four days
To marry Demetrius or die.
Hermia begged her father with tears,
“Why must I marry Demetrius? Why?”

Lysander said to his love, Hermia,
“I have a plan to become your spouse.
To be free from Athenian law,
We’ll run away to my grandma’s house.”

The plan was set in motion,
But Hermia told her friend.
In turn, her friend told Demetrius,
Who wanted it to come to an end.

Demetrius followed Lysander and Hermia,
Trying to win Hermia’s love.
Helena ran after Demetrius,
But Demetrius gave her a shove.

The forest was inhabited by fairies,
And King Oberon ruled them all.
He noticed Helena’s rejected love
And decided to rectify the gall.

Oberon ordered Puck to put love juice
On the young Athenian’s eyes.
Puck mistook Lysander for Demetrius,
And Helena was scandalized.

Puck realized his mistake
And put love juice on Demetrius.
Both men ran after Helena,
But poor Hermia was treated like pus.

They all fell asleep in the forest;
Oberon made Lysander’s eyes okay.
Now everyone loved their true loves
And married the very next day.

Related product to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” poem: Romeo and Juliet Unit Study

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Posted in Writing | 11 Comments »

Vinegar And Baking Soda Experiment

May 17th, 2013

Erupting volcanoes aren’t the only reason you will want to do a vineger and baking soda experiment with your kids. If you want to see a cool, frothing explosion any time, you can add some blue food coloring to your baking soda in a small container. Stir it well. Now add the vinegar by pouring to into the baking soda, and you will see the blue froth coming out of the container in a fun way. Be sure to put a larger container underneath to catch the excess explosion so that it doesn’t stain your counter.

vinegar-and-baking-soda-experimentThis science experiment takes less than five minutes and is sure to impress any kid, especially young ones who have never seen it before. My own kids have erupted lots of volcanoes this way, adding red food coloring to a film canister inserted into a mud volcano outside. Create four different kinds of volcanoes side by side: cinder cones, composite cones, shield cones, and lava domes. Then have four kids get ready to pour vinegar into their volcano tops. Shout, “Ready, set, go!” See which volcano erupts first.

You can use my Amazon affiliate link to buy a volcano model, which has a hole in the top for doing your vinegar and baking soda experiment. The model shows the inside of a volcano and is good for studying the anatomy of the volcano.

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Posted in Science | 2 Comments »

The Lame Story Behind the Cookie Cutter Series

May 14th, 2013

cookie-cuttersThe cookies didn’t turn out. That’s the punch line.

I had gone to the craft supply store to buy two cookie cutters the shape of flowers. I thought I would make some flower-shaped cookies for the springtime, decorating them with candy on the top to represent the petals. So I baked the cookies, but they turned out poofy and ugly. So I thought to myself, “What else can I make with these stupid cookie cutters?”

Hence the birth of the cookie cutter series. I didn’t really want to blog about cookie cutters. No. I wanted to blog about the Beth Moore Bible study on the life of David, since I am learning so much spiritually. I want to process what I am learning, and I want to blog about something that matters, not drivel like what to do with cookie cutters. I’m not surprised that my readership plummeted.

So why didn’t I write about the Bible study? Because I’m just about brain dead, working on this 8-DVD set on “Time Travel: Writing Historical Fiction.” I filmed this creative writing class two years ago (and it came out fantastic!), and after putting 100 hours of editing into it and seeing no progress in the editing, I lost heart. So I put it on hold for two years. I told my sister it was like eating a plate full of chopped liver, but that the chopped liver never went down on the plate. You know, like Dante’s Inferno–one of the circles of hell where you aren’t allowed to be finished no matter how much work you do. “Zero down, infinity to go,” I heard myself say every day after hours and hours and hours of work.

I’m going to release the Time Travel set this year if it kills me. Yep. I’m going to finish before speaking at my next homeschool conference, which is in Seattle the middle of June. I will finish.

Hence the birth of the cookie cutter series, since creating magic from cookie cutters is something I can do in my sleep almost. Since creativity is my strong point. And it started off happy. But then my kids were wondering why their lunch was always shaped like a flower.

When was all this madness going to end?

When I made the Fourth of July garland out of the star cookie cutter one night, my son Stephen declared that I was a genius the next morning. But my son Bryan (almost 13) said, rolling his eyes, “Mom, it’s April.” And so it went.

You might think that 17 ideas aren’t that many, but I never told you all the ideas that failed. Like the fried egg that stuck to the cookie cutter, and I had to flick the whole thing into the sink, burning myself. Or the carefully crafted toast that I later realized was too similar to sandwiches to count.

I finally decided to put an end to it one night when I yelled to my husband who was walking by, “I’m sick of cookie cutters! I never want to see another cookie cutter in my life!” to which he replied, “I think you should ONLY blog about cookie cutters for the rest of your life. 1,976 creative ways to use cookie cutters. You would be famous. You might get on TV…”

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Posted in Humor | 2 Comments »

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