day forty five: a whole lot of inspiring creations from pinterest

pineapple and prawn fried rice

day forty five and i just couldn't choose one project!  after a really busy week, it was nice to have extra time to create today ... and create i did!

the first creation was some shorts for the boy inspired by a pin on my general crafts board from saltwater kids ... there are some seriously good tutorials on sewing for the novice on this blog :)  emily at saltwater kids transforms a mens shirt into some stunning boys shorts.  unfortunately the only old shirt i had of steve's to chop up was a purple one so that wasn't going to work for my nine year old boy, but i did have some nice blue gingham cotton.  even if you don't have a shirt, you can definitely follow along with the tutorial and she gives you great advice on the how to's and know how and even steps you through making the pattern!

shorts for the boy :)

shorts outcome:  outstanding, i am NOT a seamstress but even i have to admit these shorts looked really good when i had finished them ... actually they were so good, so easy i had two pairs done by lunch!  thank you so much emily from saltwater kids for another wonderful crafty project that made me feel like i was a champion seamstress at the end of it!  her blog is full of crafty goodness and tutorials, totally worth looking at even if its just for craft eye candy :)

making the lemon curd

the next creation was inspired by a pin i found on the pinterest gallery early this morning ... lemon meringue pie!  the pie is pinned to my recipe must do's board and is from allrecipes.com.  it looked so good and as we have a tree laden with lemons, there seemed no excuse not to make one today (especially as my sweet mum said she was happy to help :))  ok, this recipe is not for the one bowl wonder bakers amongst us, so prepare for the dishes!

the absolutely delicious lemon meringue pie

lemon meringue pie outcome:  the finished pie looked so good, we couldn't hold out for dessert so we had it this afternoon!  and it was TOTALLY worth it and ALL the dishes.  its not too sweet, or too tart, just beautiful.  some lemon meringue pies i have had in the past have been overpoweringly sweet and one bite gives you a lolly headache!  this isn't like that, its a really nice balance between tang and sweet :)    ...    luckily there was enough left for dessert as well!

the final creation of today is pineapple shrimp fried rice pinned from skinny taste onto my recipe must do's board  ...  in the supermarket early this morning to get a couple of things and some imported pineapples were reduced to clear.  normally i would have thought well its not summer here (clearly!) i don't need that, but then i remembered i had pinned a couple of pineapple recipes to my pinterest boards the other day ... so that little pineapple came home with me to be turned into a pinterest inspired creation ... this is why i love pinterest, i am trying things i normally wouldn't bother to do!

cooking the fried rice in the wok

i substituted the shrimp for prawns (personal preference) and put in spinach instead of scallions, the rest of the recipe remained the same :)

ready to eat straight from the pineapple!

pineapple and prawn fried rice outcome: i thought the brown rice would make this quite a heavy, stodgy meal but the lightness of the prawns and pineapple really help to keep it light!  it was gobbled up by everybody and apart from waiting for the brown rice to cook was very quick and easy to cook :)  thanks so much to gina at skinny taste for the delightful, healthy meal we really enjoyed tonight, it was an awesome recipe.

and that folks is all the creating for today, see you tomorrow :)  i'm thinking a pillow might be made, but who can tell!

day forty four: pesto, mozzarella, and bacon toasties

a superb hot winters lunch :)

day forty four and its a saturday here ... bring on the weekend and when its winter AND the school holidays saturday lunch should be hot and delicious and that is just what today's pinterest 365 was all about!  ages ago i pinned a superb looking 'sisters sandwich' to my recipe must do's board from the three many cooks website ... the website is gorgeous and has the most delicious looking recipes!

the ingredients

adding the layers of flavour!

as it was just the girls at home for the day, all sisters in our own right, i thought this sandwich would be ideal for saturday lunch :)  luckily we had all the main ingredients in the fridge and a panini machine waiting to be heated!

such awesome flavours together

outcome:  oh my these flavours are DIVINE together, no wonder people put them together on pizzas all the time!  the basil pesto and bacon are awesome flavours together and they hit the spot brilliantly.  these are so good you could serve them up to visitors for lunch .... although you may not want to share them!

thanks to the crew at three many cooks for a wonderful recipe, i am sure to use more from your recipe files in the very near future.

day forty three: the 'bored' jar

the completed 'bored' jar!

day forty three and i know a fair proportion of the world are having school holidays ... some for summer, some for term break, but regardless of holiday and no matter how prepared and excited you and the kids are during this time, every now and then parents get the "i'm bored, i don't know what to do" from their peeps!

have no fear parents and caregivers, shayna from shaydes of life has a solution from her childhood ... the bored jar~!  whenever a peep in her house uttered the phrase "i'm bored" they would have to go to the jar and do the activity they pulled out without whining, ifs, or buts! her mum put in lots of good stuff like have an ice cream, ride bikes for an hour, play with chalk, but there were also some nasties in their to discourage the use of the 'bored' phrase ... so if you did utter it, you took your chances on whether saying it was worth it!

all the bits you need :)

i thought this sounded like a great idea, its a great solution for a problem that sometimes (not often) rears its ugly head AND will prevent me from getting grumpy with the child who is bored!  this ideas is pinned onto my home school projects board on pinterest. i grabbed a nice cheap, but cheerful jar from a local store and some attached some scrapbook letters to the outside.  the inside is full of ideas some nasty, some fantastic, some so so :) i ended up with about fifty activities in the jar, some of them are below.

some bored jar activities: make a sculpture out of pipe cleaners, vacuum upstairs, have a shower, make some cookies, clean the windows in two rooms, sweep the decks,  make a house with lego, do some chalk drawings on the concrete, play hopscotch, watch a dvd, write a letter to send to a relative, make a sculpture out of 32 lego bricks, read the book closest to your bed for 40 minutes, make a hut in the forest, make a birthday card using stamps, wash the front of the kitchen cupboards, play top trumps, computer time for 40 minutes, build a fort in your bedroom using blankets, bake a cake to give to a friend, make a piece of art using only pasta, make four pompoms, ride your bike for an hour, paint a picture, tidy up the classroom, rake up the cabbage tree leaves, make a boat out of fruit and vegies that will float, write a list of 20 words being with D, make a puppet from a sock, etc

take your chances with this jar!

outcome:  i think the kids are running scared, nobody has dared mentioned being bored!  so from this, i can tell you the jar is a TOTAL success! its so funny, watching them look at the jar with weary eyes not knowing if this is going to be a good or a bad thing for them when they say that WORD THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED!  i have also decided that when one is taken out i will replace it with a new one so they know that once its gone it may not reappear for a while and i am also going to put some seasonal ones in their (eg: swimming in the summer, inside activities for winter)

may thanks to shayna from shaydes of life for blogging about her childhood and this wonderful idea to alleviate the boredom problem when it arises!

day forty two: smartie pants treats

smarties trouser treats!

day forty two and its time to reward my hard working kids!  they have been doing a fantastic job with their maths this week, they have had some new maths ideas to work through and have done a great job so i am going to reward them today with 'smartie pants'!  this is a fantastic gift idea from the muddy princess kimberly, and i have pinned it to my gift wrapping and gift ideas board on pinterest.  kimberly has so many wonderful crafty ideas on her blog its well worth checking out.

the template and the trace :)

this is nice and easy so you could do multiplies pretty simply ... i have a class of two so no worries for me!  i used some scrap card and made a pattern, then traced around it for the rest of the trousers. after some gluing, a bit of pen work, a couple of brads to make them a little more robust, and an investment in some smarties, i'd say you are good to go .... !

just need some smarties in these cute little pants!

outcome:  these are really fun to make and totally rewarding to give :)  the joy of giving them is thanks enough, seeing there cute little faces light up is SO cool. i can think of so many ways you could adapt them so you could use them for valentines day, christmas, birthday favours, all sorts :) if you need to give a lot of little people a boost or a thank you then you need go no further than these ... sweet, simple, and fun to make!

he was so chuffed at being a smartie pants!

big, big thanks goes to the muddy princess for having such wonderful crafty ideas on her blog, it makes being inspired to give it a go so much easier :)

day forty one: pretzel hugs

my pretzel hugs

day forty one and its the day of our home school bush battle so its another recipe to feed the hungry troops for p365 today.  the hugs are pinned to my recipe must do's board and it was pinned there from food gawker.  very cool website for finding out what people are making and loving :)

ready for the oven!

the kids should love these as a treat and they are going to take no time to make on a busy day :)  just what i need!  speaking of need, all you require for this recipe are hersheys, pretzels, and m&ms ... i am making a largish amount so opted out of the hersheys in favour of chocolate melts :)

there really isn't a recipe for this, the instruction even fit on the pin! turn oven on to about 150C, spread pretzels out on an oven tray, put chocolate on top.  once the chocolate has gone soft take out of the oven (around 2/3 minutes) and put an m&m into the melted chocolate before the chocolate hardens!

so good :)

some of the hungry bush battlers!

outcome:  i made a huge amount of these little gems and they were into them completely!  and the funny thing was the adults loved them just as much as the kids ... these are a definite to make again and again.

if you love food check out the recipes at food gawker, really inspiring ideas from a wide range of people!

day forty: hot milk cake

my hot milk cake :)

day forty and tomorrow i am taking the kids off for a 'battle in the bush' with a big group of home school kids! they have to make camo forts and design a flag for their group and generally spend some good ole' fashioned time outside getting exhausted.  at some point during the afternoon we will have to feed these mighty children, so todays pin is on my recipe must do's board, is from taste of home and its their hot milk cake.  i have never heard of such a cake so this will be exciting!

the batter ready to hop into the oven

the immediate thing that draws me to this recipe is that it doesn't require any unusual ingredients and most of them i have at home most of the time ... good news if this cake tastes good :)  the other good news is it doesn't require icing!

i gathered the ingredients (eggs, sugar, vanilla, flour, baking powder, milk, and butter), combined and my first surprise was how much mixture this cake makes!  its also a really runny mixture ... but into the oven it went while i checked the recipe to see what i had done wrong ... couldn't find anything :)

slice of cake anyone?

outcome: the cake was a big success ... it took an hour to bake but i have just realised the cake tin i put it in was really small compared to what was suggested in the recipe!  ok pays to read what tin size to use, metal note for the future :) family is stoked with this cake, super cool and totally doesn't need icing.  it tastes somewhere between a soft cupcake and madeira cake ... it definitely makes the list of make agains!

taste of home is quite a new recipe site to me but i am totally loving the recipes from it ... some are easier than others, but the effort is worth the result :) i am very grateful to the lovely people of taste of home it is a fantastic resource, thank you!

day thirty nine: 15 bags in 15 days clean out!

the 'bag' of clearing from the tv room bookcases!

found this cute pin for day thirty nine 40 bags in 40 days and as we are about to put our house on the market, i thought this type of clean out would be very timely :).  the pin comes from a really neat blog  little lucy lu ... a little bit of pink in the country (her blog had me at the title!) and you can find it on my ideas for organisation board at pinterest.

working on my list :)

 i don't have that many spaces to clean out ... small but quaint is were i live! so i am doing 15 bags in 15 days ... this will work really well with the spring clean i have going on :)  made my list in word and then printed ready to tackle today's bag!

the finished list with one crossed off!

outcome:  ok it ended up not being a bag but a table full of books and a couple of kids toys but the tv room bookcase now has about a third less books than it did have ... love the list and hopefully one a day won't seem a burden ... super hyped about this organisation list!

many thanks to bec's from  little lucy lu ... a little bit of pink in the country, for the fantastic idea which is totally going to help me unclutter my house without in being a major burden ... love great ideas and blogs and bec certainly fits into both those categories :)