St Patrick's Day Recipe - Shamrock Pretzel

Here's a tasty new twist on the traditional St. Patrick's Day shamrock -- sweet green pretzels fashioned from canned refrigerated bread stick dough and coated with a sprinkling of colored sugar and cinnamon.

Ingredients

• Canned refrigerated bread stick dough (we used Pillsbury Original Breadsticks)
• Colored sugar

• Cinnamon

Instructions

1. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and lightly coat it with cooking spray.
   
2. To create the clover shape, mold 3 sections of bread sticks into hearts and press them together as shown. Attach a small stem, decorate, bake according to the package directions, and serve them up to your lucky guests.
   

Easter Topiary Craft Decoration

• 6-inch Styrofoam Ball
• Foot-long Wooden Dowel
• Glue
• 6-inch Terra-Cotta Pot
• Plaster

• Easter Grass
• 2 Layers of Tulle (1 purple, 1 yellow) or Acrylic Paint
• Ribbons
• Round Toothpicks
• Round, Foil-Wrapped Chocolate

1. Poke a 6-inch Styrofoam ball onto a foot-long wooden dowel and glue the ball in place.
   
2. Fill a decorated 6-inch terra-cotta pot with plaster--first glue a piece of Styrofoam over the hole at the bottom--and push the dowel into the still-wet plaster. After the plaster sets, glue Easter grass on its surface.
   
3. So the Styrofoam doesn't show through, cover the ball in 2 layers of tulle (1 purple, 1 yellow), which you can gather tightly around the dowel with ribbons (you could also just paint the ball with acrylic paint).
   
4. Use round toothpicks to cover the ball with chocolates, poking one end into the chocolate and the other into the ball

Valentine's Day Lollipop Craft

• Red and green construction paper or card stock
• Scissors

• Lollipop
• Glue stick

1. From red construction paper, cut out a heart that's just larger than the lollipop candy and glue it to the wrapper.
   
2. For the leaves, fold the green paper in half and cut out a leaf shape, leaving the two sides attached at the seam.
   
3. Unfold the double leaf shape, coat the entire inside surface with glue, and fold it back over the lollipop stem, pressing to secure.
   

Father's Day CD Case Photo Frame

Easter Carrot Tree Decoration

Lure the Easter Bunny to your house with this mini indoor tree bearing his favorite snack. 

• Several 12-inch orange bumpy pipe cleaners
• Several 4-inch lengths of green embroidery floss
• Newspaper

• Bare tree branch
• Small flowerpot
• Decorative stones or glass beads

To make one, first cut several 12-inch orange bumpy pipe cleaners into quarters to create four 3-inch pieces, each with a wider part at its center.

Form each piece into a carrot by folding over about ½ inch at one end and tying on several 4-inch lengths of green embroidery floss at the bend. Trim the floss, if necessary. Slip a loop of floss or string under the folded end for a hanger, then fold up the bottom tip of the pipe cleaner as well. Next, use balled-up newspaper to support a bare branch (ours was about 10 inches tall) set upright in a small flowerpot. Add a layer of decorative stones or glass beads, then hang the pipe cleaner carrots on the branch.

St. Patrick's Day Game

Can you fool the leprechaun in search of the lost gold?  In this group game, players must put on their poker faces and use sleight of hand to keep a coin from a leprechaun's sight.

What You Need

• Coin

Instructions

1. First select a leprechaun and have her cover her eyes or look away while you hand a coin to one of the other players. Then have all the players sit in a circle with the leprechaun standing in the middle.
   
2. At "Go," the seated players begin slyly passing the coin around the circle, being careful to hide the coin from the leprechaun's view. The coin can reverse direction at any time, and players without the coin can pretend to pass it along to add to the challenge.
   
3. When the leprechaun thinks she knows who has the coin, she calls "stop" and names her suspect. If the leprechaun guesses right, the 2 players switch places. If not, play continues.
   

Valentine's Day Yarn Heart Craft

• Yarn
• Cornstarch Glue
• Water

• Heart-shaped cookie cutter
• Parchment paper

1. First, make the glue by combining ¼ cup of cornstarch and ½ cup of water in a saucepan and stirring until smoothHeat the mixture over medium heat until it's thick and translucent. Allow it to cool to the touch.
2. Cut yarn into foot-long pieces.
   
3. Place a heart-shaped cookie cutter on the shiny side of a piece of parchment paper. Have your child push a piece of yarn into the glue to coat it. Pick up the piece and run it between a thumb and forefinger to remove the excess glue. Lay the yarn inside the cookie cutter.
   
4. Repeat with the other pieces until the yarn fills the heart shape in a thin layer. With clean hands, press the yarn flat. Gently lift off the cookie cutter and allow the yarn to dry hard, at least a day.
   
5. You can speed up the drying process by placing the hearts and parchment paper into an oven set to "warm" for an hour or two.
   

Friday Family Funtime - Build A Tube Castle

Start with an assortment of toilet tissue and paper towel rolls. Color the tubes with a coat of gold poster paint. Once they are dry, you can create the appearance of cut stone by applying a contrasting color with a small sponge square. Using a utility knife, cut windows in the tube towers (a parent's job) or just draw them on with a black marker. Cut notches around the tops of several turrets.

When assembling the castle, start from the center. Glue together two or three taller tubes for the main towers. Then, stack smaller rolls around them, interlocking the towers with tabs cut in the tube bottoms. Create the castle's front wall using a 4-inch square of construction paper. Draw on an ornate door frame and sandwich the wall between the front two rows of towers.

Now you're ready to start roofing. For each roof, cut a circle out of construction paper. Make a single snip into the center and form a cone by overlapping and gluing together the cut edges. Glue the roofs in place on top of the towers. For a miniature drawbridge, glue Popsicle-stick planks side by side onto a piece of cardboard. Attach the drawbridge to the castle wall with metallic cording or paper clip chains.

Friday Family Funtime - Cork in the Bottle Trick

Friday Family Funtime - Secret Message Experiment

Friday Family Funtime - Ivory Soap Science Experiment

Best Cut Out Sugar Cookie Recipe

• 1 cup margarine
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Cream the margarine and add the sugar gradually. Beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition.
2. Stir in the vanilla. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt gradually to the creamed mixture, stirring in by hand. Cover and chill dough overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Roll dough out on a floured surface to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and cut into your favorite shapes. Place cookies onto the prepared baking sheets.
5. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 7 to 8 minutes or until cookie has a golden appearance.
 

Icing Recipe:

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- 2 tsp milk

- 2 tsp light corn syrup

- 1/4 tsp almond extract (or vanilla)

- we added green food color

 

Friday Family Funtime - Giant Bubble Maker

Friday Family Funtime - 3D Ornaments Craft

Friday Family Funtime - Make Paper Snowflakes