Alligator Jars

Just a few months from now a dear friend will be having her first baby, a boy.   She's registered at Pottery Barn Kids and now that my girls have outgrown that store, I was looking forward to having an excuse to go in and look around.  

But then she threw me a curve ball: "I want you to make my gift," she told me.  

This is understandable given all the the blogging and crafting that goes on over here.  But I really liked the Alligator Madras Nursery Bedding bedding she picked out at PBK, so I decided to incorporate it into my gift.  

Now I have exactly one pregnant friend at this point in my life and she knows who she is.  

Young lady, if you are reading this, STOP NOW!  (xoxo)

Some of you might remember the animal jars that are displayed in my laundry room.  After contemplating several projects I finally decided to do something similar for my friend's baby (using alligators, of course!)  

I started with these plastic jars from Michael's.  I found them on clearance a long time ago and knew I would one day use them.  I thought they'd be perfect for a baby's room as they are unbreakable.  

Then I picked up some inexpensive plastic alligators to mimic the ones on the bedding.  You can see that the one in the middle has a little ring on his nose.  I ended up cutting those off and filing them down to remove any sharp edges.  

A little hot glue secured them to the lids.  

Then I got to spray painting.  That's right, I'm a spray painting fool these days.  I still kind of stink at it but practice makes perfect.  I began by spraying the tops within the confines of this cardboard box.  

In order to spray the sides I put the lids on an old jar so my fingers wouldn't get in the way.

As usual, my spray painting is full of imperfections but I'm still pretty happy with the result.

 I decided to fill the jars with baby items like the washcloths pictured below.

I think they'll look cute sitting on a shelf in the nursery.  I also think they can grow with him, eventually holding crayons or something similar.

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Lunch Box Smoothies

My older daughter just started sixth grade.  That means, not including this year, she has been in school for six years.  At roughly 180 days per school year, that comes out to 1080 days that she has spent in school so far.  And the number of times she has bought her lunch in those 1080 days?

Once.

That's right, I made the other 1079 lunches.  Her sister, who's in second grade, has also bought only one time, bringing her homemade lunch total to 359.

Needless to say, I'm always looking for ideas to spice up their lunches.

So I was intrigued when I happened upon this post from Jessica at Stay at Home-ista:  One Week in Kindergarten Lunches.

I love her lunch ideas and recommend that you go over and check them out.  I was particularly intrigued, however, by her choice of packaging.  She packs many of her daughter's snacks in Ball Freezer Jars, the type of jar one uses when making freezer jam.  

I sent her an email asking about it and this was her reply: "I love the ball jars since they are dishwasher, microwave, freezer safe and they keep things from getting squished."

Well it just so happened that I had some freezer jars tucked away from a little freezer jam experiment of yore.    (Did you know that I have a peach tree?  And that the peaches all tend to ripen within a four week period?  And if you don't pick those peaches they go splat all over your patio?  Well they do.  And thus, my moderately successful attempt at making freezer jam.  But that's a post for another time.)

And those little jars got me thinking.  They're so... cup-like.  And that made me think of drinks.  But these are cups that you can freeze, so that got me thinking about frozen drinks, like smoothies!  (Because my daughters' school really frowns upon Pina Coladas...)

And that's when it hit me:  I could make smoothies, freeze them in the Ball jars, put them in my daughters' lunches in the a.m. and they would likely be defrosted by lunch.

Yesterday was my maiden run.  

My smoothies include Greek yogurt, OJ, frozen berries and bananas.  I would give you measurements if I had them.  I tend to eyeball it.  One Magic Bullet's worth of smoothie fills two 8 oz. Ball jars.  I made two batches and sent each girl to school with a smoothie. 

The verdict when they got home?  An enthusiastic thumbs up.  Both smoothies were perfectly defrosted by noon and my girls were the belles of the lunchroom.  

So--what are your favorite lunch box ideas?  I'd love to hear them.

('Cause by my calculations, I still have over 3000 lunches left to go...)

(I had to include pictures of both lunch boxes.  Fairness is everything...)

Pizza Muffins

 One of the unexpected joys of blogging has been my daughters' reaction to the blog.  Not only do they love to read it, but they are constantly making suggestions for new posts.  "You should totally blog that, mom," has become a common refrain around here.

Last week the younger of the two announced that she had an idea for a recipe: pizza muffins, pizza baked in a muffin tin.  I told her we'd give it a try.  "But will you blog it?" she asked.

Little girl, this one's for you!

Like many of the things I make around here, there was a lot of winging it with this recipe.  (I often picture more experienced cooks reading this blog and shaking their heads in disbelief.)

I started with the prepared pizza dough from Fresh and Easy.  Trader Joe's also has wonderful pre-made dough and theirs comes in whole wheat too.  (Apologies to my mother who made us pizza from scratch, including homemade dough, every single Saturday night of my childhood.)

So after spraying my muffin tins with cooking spray, my daughter and I made twelve balls of dough.  We rolled each one flat and put them in the tins.  They kind of shrunk up and pulled away from the sides but that didn't matter in the end.

Wow these muffin tins look grungy.   I swear I wash them.  Let's just call them "well-loved."   

You can top/fill your muffins with whatever ingredients you'd like.  The first time I made them I actually used ground up meatloaf as a filling and it was wonderful.  (And yes, that's the same meatloaf recipe found here.)  This time we used pepperoni, olives, sauce and mozzarella.

We had different combos in each cup.  We put in the meat first (for those that had meat), then the olives...


...and then the sauce.

Finally we topped the whole thing with cheese and popped them in the oven.

Not only did my daughter come up with the idea, she also helped clean up while the muffins were in the oven.  Love that kid.

They emerged looking beautiful (despite the grungy muffin tins ;)

And they were as tasty as they were pretty.  If I make them again I might use a little less dough and a little more filling.  Beyond that, I'd say they were perfect.

Many thanks to my little chef for the inspiration!

Update:  For those who asked.  I simply used the baking directions (time and temp) that came with the dough.  I did not pre-bake the dough and it seemed to work out just fine.

Decorating Paper Bag Book Covers

On Wednesday my older daughter started middle school.  And if I didn't think that I'd bore you to death, I would probably write a wistful, ten page post detailing my thoughts and feelings on the subject.

But given that her week was okay (and I'm emotionally spent from thinking about it) I'd like to focus on an aspect of middle school that we've both enjoyed (and possibly the most random topic ever): covering her textbooks.

(Look, it involves cutting up brown paper bags.  As a craft blogger (sorta, kinda), I'm obligated to get excited over this stuff.)

Anyway, when I found out that she would be needing to cover her books, I thought back fondly to those days of yore when my mother and I would sit down on a September evening, a stack of paper bags in front of us, and cover my textbooks.

But then I remembered something!  These days you can buy book covers.  (Spoiled 21st century children!)  And those covers come in all kinds of cool colors and patterns.  Surely my new sixth grader would want those over brown paper bags.  (Wouldn't she?)

Well, it turns out that my kid is ten-kinds-of-awesome because, no, she didn't want those pre-fab covers.  In fact, when I told her that she could have those or the ones that my mom and I used to make, she chose to go old school.  (And I'm pretty sure she didn't do it just to humor her poor, nostalgic mother, either.)

Now if you've never covered a textbook with a brown paper bag, I'm going to direct you to Youtube where there are numerous how-to videos that you can watch at your leisure.

Because what my daughter and I really enjoyed was the decorating.  (I might have begged to help.)

We used all kinds of fun items including Washi Tape, Sharpies, Stamps, jewel stickers--anything we had lying around, really.

Here are some books that she decorated:

And here is the back of one that I did.  (I obviously have a thing for Washi Tape Buntings these days):

Thanks for indulging this mama at the end of a difficult week.  I'll be back to share some more first-world problems real soon!  ;)

Punch Box Revisited

One of my most popular posts to date (okay, it was actually THE most popular post I've ever written) was called "A Party Favor."  In it, I explained how I found this blog via Pinterest and how it inspired me to make a Punch Box for my neighbor's fourth birthday.  

When I wrote it I had no idea what an amazing response it would garner.  Seriously, people went nuts for this thing.  And the absolute best part about it?  Well, that's been the people who have written me to say that they wanted to make one (or that they already had).  

One of those people was Diane, the director of my daughter's preschool.  My daughter is long out of preschool but Diane and I remain friends on Facebook.  (Thank you, Facebook.)

Upon seeing the punch box she sent me an email asking if I'd help her make one for her granddaughter Chloee.  She wanted to use it in lieu of an Easter basket as a fun way for Chloee to collect some Easter loot.  It was a great excuse for us to get together and chit-chat while getting our craft on.  

Below is the finished product.  We used a Uhaul box and she decorated it with paper flowers.  (And get a load of her craft room in the background.  I seriously want to live in there...) 

But Diane wasn't the only one who was inspired.  About a week ago I received the following email from reader Sabrina Fitzgerald-Ruiz:

Thank you for the creative tutorial in the "Punch Box". I'm always looking for new ideas to spice up my daughter's birthday parties. This year she's turning the big "1-0" and I wanted to do something unique. My daughter just loved the idea when I showed it to her on Pinterest.

I wish I would have had the circle scoring tool, as I'm sure it would've been a lot faster. I ended up using a coaster to outline circles and used an Exacto-knife to cut out circles. I wanted to step it up a little bit, so I used zebra wrapping paper. I also found letters that were much like post notes that were a fun.


I was quite surprised at how much candy and toy prizes we were able to get in the lunch bags. My daughter and I enjoyed doing this together. I really hope the girls at her slumber party love it.

A Punch Box makes a great alternative to a Pinata!

Check out those pictures!  Didn't she do a great job?!  (Sabrina, I'd love to hear about the girls' reaction.)

(And for the record, you can order one of the "circle scoring tools" by following this link or clicking on the Products tab above.)

Finally, another punch box spin-off comes from the lovely and talented Amy from the blog, While Wearing Heels.   While on vacation last week I was delighted to open my ipad and find this post on her blog.  (Yes, I keep up with my favorite blogs on vacation, even if I'm not updating my own ;)

Please click on the link above to read her post.  And not just because it says all kinds of nice things about me.  (Unless that motivates you.  Come to think of it, that might be why I read it three times... ;)  Seriously, though, go for the punch box and stay for everything else.  You can also follow her through Google Friend Connect or Bloglovin'.  She's a frequent poster and her blog is full of the MOST adorable crafts.  (I guarantee you'll recognize many of them from Pinterest.)

I'd like to finish up by inviting you to send in pictures of your punch box.  If you do I'll be happy to feature them on `a casarella's Facebook page.  

Happy Punching!

Don't judge me!

Why yes, I did just spend thirty minutes organizing my daughters' crayons by color.  

Organizing is a passion of mine.  Passion--sickness--whatever.  It makes me awfully happy.

And to prove that I'm not completely delusional, I ask that you note all of the broken crayons.  If I were truly OCD those puppies would never have made the cut.  As it stands I have two little girls who keep my sanity in check.  There was no way they were sacrificing some of their favorite crayons (why else would they be so well-loved?) for the purpose of this picture.  Well-played, girls.  Well-played.