How to Send a Message in an Egg

In the spirit of springtime, I thought this project would be apropos. Everyone puts up posts about how to decorate an egg but this post, originally found here on TechLoveDesign, is about how to decorate in order to destroy it.... well... crack it open. This would be great not only for springtime but for a birthday card or a baby shower note!

Here's what you'll need:

1. An egg
2. A container/jar to put the contents of egg in
3. A safety pin
4. Paint
5. A piece of paper with your message written on it

First, stick a safety pin at the top and bottom of your egg. Have one of the holes be bigger than the other, since you'll be putting your rolled up message at that end.

Put your mouth at the small hole end and blow! The egg contents should drip out into your container.

Next comes the painting. I decided to try and paint it similar to the original so I made it light blue, let it dry, and went over with a second coat.

Now you could use white stickers or you could paint white dots, however you choose to decorate your egg.

Once the paint is dry, roll up your message as tight as you can and stick it through the bigger hole you made earlier. Note that if your paper is bigger than the hole, you will slightly crack the shell.

Put it in a box that says "Crack Me" and watch them smile at your creative gift! If you want to make a felt box, see my DIY post here.

TOTAL COSTS: Free!
Note that I already had a safety pin (from the dry cleaners), paint, paper, and an egg

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Overnight + about 3 hours
5 minutes to blow out egg yolk and whites
Let the inside dry overnight but it was still sticky inside after 24 hours. I'd suggest giving it 2+ days to let the inside dry completely before painting
1 hour for first coat to dry
1 hour for second coat to dry
1 hour for dots to dry
5 minutes to roll up the message and stick inside the egg

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
If you don't like blowing up balloons, you won't like blowing out the egg yolk and whites. Other than that, it's not difficult at all to paint an egg shell and stick a message inside!

Super Bowl Sunday Food!

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! I wanted to make some delicious food I've never done before and the results? Touchdown!!! You could make these today or any day of the year, for that matter. So... let's get started!

Super Bowl Treat #1 - Bread Bowls 

I used this recipe from Chef in Training and let me tell you, buy a new, big bag of flour because you'll probably use the entire thing (I used all but 1 cup from a 5 lb. bag). If you don't want to make 12 bread bowls, cut the recipe in half.

First, combine the following: 5 cups of warm water, 1 packet of yeast (or 2T), and 2/3 cup of sugar. Wait until the yeast has started bubbling (about 10 minutes).

Next, add 2/3 cup of oil, 2 Tbsp. of salt, and 3 cups of flour and start mixin'!

Keep adding flour one cup at a time (no more than 14 cups) until it starts to pull away from the bowl. I ended up using 11 cups before eventually dumping it onto a table and kneading it repeatedly for 6 minutes. Make sure to constantly flour your table or it will stick to it. Not having a bread maker makes things a little more manual, but not impossible.

Break up the dough into 12 balls and put them on cookie sheets. I put down parchment paper first, just so the dough wouldn't stick to the bottom. Also, you're supposed to let them rise but it doesn't say for how long. I let them rise for two different amounts of time, 15 minutes for 6 rolls (top) and 30 minutes for the other 6 (bottom), and the longer you let them rise, the better. See how much a difference of 15 minutes can make?

Once they've risen, put them in the oven at 350 degrees. I ended up having them in there for 40 minutes, but the original recipe says 20-30 minutes. It depends on the size of your dough balls and your oven. Once they're done baking, ;et them cool, cut out a hole, scoop out the inside and pour in your soup, chili, etc. Need a good chili recipe? I used this one and it turned out amazing!


Super Bowl Treat #2 - Mozzarella Sticks 

These were so easy to make and really good too! I used this recipe from Recipe Best. Take some string cheese and cut them in half. Next, in three separate bowls:

Bowl #1 - 1 cup of flour
Bowl #2 - 2 eggs and 2 T of milk
Bowl #3 - 1 cup of Panko bread crumbs and 1 cup of Italian bread crumbs
(I had 7 cheese sticks - 14 half sticks - and had SO much leftover flour, eggs, and bread crumbs that I easily could have cut the recipe in half and still had leftovers. So either buy a lot of string cheese or cut the recipe in half!)

Take a cut piece of cheese and first dip it in flour, then the egg mixture, then the bread crumbs and place it on a plate. Do this for all the pieces of cheese.

        

Next, put that plate in the freezer for 30 minutes, so the cheese has time to harden (and not melt in the oven). 

While the cheese is in the freezer, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. After the 30 minutes, place the cheese sticks on parchment paper on a baking sheet. Take 2 Tablespoons of butter and drizzle the butter over the cheese sticks. Place the cheese sticks in the oven for 8-10 minutes (I had mine in there for 10 and they came out great, but every oven is different).

And there you have it! Dip your cheese sticks in sauce (or eat naked, like we did) and enjoy!

The silverware holders? I took tin cans, wrapped them in brown paper, and painted on laces with white paint. The cheese sticks holder? I used this snack box pattern from HWTM.

My apologies but this will be my first post where I can't include costs because all receipts were thrown out! First and last time that will happen, I assure you!

Bread Bowls
TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 1 hour, 45 minutes + 30 minutes to cool
EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
This one is a little more difficult to make because it requires a lot of flour, a lot of kneading, and getting the bowls to be the same size is easier than it sounds.

Cheese Sticks
TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 1 hour
20 minutes to make
30 minutes to freeze
10 minutes to bake

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
This would be a great activity to kids to help with, however it does get messy so either wear gloves or get ready to make a mess!

Santa Hand Ornament

In my family, the ornaments that the kids are most embarrassed by and that the parents adore are the ones we made in elementary school. So this is one you could easily make with your kids and bring it out year after year without their faces turning too red! I found this post by Shelley Jo Moozings and while I don't have kids myself, I gave it a whirl to see just how easy it was to make.

Start off by making the dough - 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 1/2 cups of water mixed in a big bowl. Now she recommends kneading the dough for 15-20 minutes but your arms will be tired after 5, maybe 10. Really, just knead it until you can form it into a nice ball.

Next, bust out your rolling pin! Take your ball of dough, place it on a floured surface, and with your rolling pin, roll it out to the thickness you want the ornament to be (note: in my experience, the thicker the dough, the longer in the oven. However, the thicker the dough, the easier to glue the pieces back together should it break when your cat tries to climb up the Christmas tree!). Take your child's hand, your hand, your pet's paw, and push it into the dough.

(I'm sure it's much cuter the small the handprint, so you'll have to bear with and my ogre hands.)

Trace around the print using a knife. Now this is a very important step: don't forget to put a hole in the top so you're able to hang it!

Now comes the waiting game. The instructions said to stick it in the oven at 300 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden. I had mine in the oven for 40 minutes but I probably should have left it in there for an hour. Wasn't golden but it worked!

Next came the painting. Now you don't have to paint it, you could take a red and black marker, draw on the hat, beard, eyes and nose and be done. However, if you want a pure white background, paint the sucker. Doesn't take that long to try, I gave it 20 minutes. Don't forget to paint the sides too, if your ornament is thick! Here's a photo of the four paints I ended up using - white, red, black, and yellow.


One tip I recommend? Once the white paint dry, take a red marker and black marker and trace around the areas you're going to paint before painting. This way, it'll give you a nice template and you can paint within the lines.

Now I tried to paint it exactly like the original but because I don't have the hands of a 5 year old, it did look a bit... longer. Still, it didn't take that long and it's a nice, unique, fun ornament for the tree!

TOTAL COSTS: Free!

But that's because I had flour, salt, water, and paint on hand. If you don't have paint available, you can pick up 2oz. bottles at Blick Art Supplies or Utrecht for as cheap as $1.99/bottle

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About an hour and a half

25 minutes to make dough and cut out hand

40 minutes to bake

40 minutes to cool 

30 minutes to paint

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

This should be easy enough for a kid do to do (with adult supervision). This would make a great gift or pass down ornament in your family. Enjoy!

Paint on Elmer's Glue - Worth It?

Ever see a photo on the internet with a description of what to do and wonder what the final outcome is supposed to look like? Well, I came across this one on Pinterest with the description, "Elmer's glue on canvas. then paint over it." Seemed simple enough, but what did it look like? Well folks, I tried this one out for you and here's what I found:

After glue dries

Before glue dries

First, I took a small canvas and Elmer's glue and tried to make the same design they did. However, I discovered that the thicker the area, the more the details started to melt away. If you try to do this, be careful not use too much glue or it will start to spread.

After waiting 24 hours, I went to see the results... and as you can see in the photos, it doesn't look at all like the first photo. The glue, while 3-D in some areas (mainly the bottom right corner), it was practically invisible in others. So that's problem #1.

Problem #2? If you can't see the glue, how on earth are you supposed to paint over it?! So here's what it looks like if you paint around the glue and here's what it looks like when you paint over.

If you paint around the glue, be sure you have a tiny paintbrush if your glue design was detailed.

If you paint over the glue, you can come up with some fun designs that will (hopefully) end up being 3-D but it's up to you how you want to paint over it. I ended up just swirling the paintbrush around and after it dried, got some nice see-through effects:

Ultimately, I don't think painting over Elmer's glue was the bees knees. I suppose anything you make that could be monogrammed would be a nice gift for someone, but I think you can skip the glue part, especially because it takes so long to dry.

TOTAL COSTS: About $12
$2.99 for 5oz. of Elmer's glue from Michael's
$1.99 for 2oz. bottle of paint from Blick Art Supplies
$6.60 for a 4x6 canvas

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 30 minutes + 24 hours to dry
10 minutes to glue design
24 hours to dry
15 minutes to paint

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
But really, unless you're going to use a LOT of glue, this may be one of those things on the internet best left on the internet.

Chalkboard Coffee Mugs

I kept running across creative DIY project on Pinterest involving chalkboard paint and thought it would be a nice, creative, and hopefully easy project to take on. Kids, if you do nothing else, learn from Mama Kat's mistakes... today's post comes from Wit & Whistle's Chalkboard Mug post.

Here's everything you will need: a mug, a paintbrush, chalkboard paint for porcelain, painters tape (not masking tape - more on that later), rubber gloves (optional - I didn't and still have black on my nails) and eventually, chalk.

Rule #1 - Cover your workspace, so you have a safe place to put down the paintbrush and mug.

Rule #2 - Do not use chalkboard spray paint like this one. I know, it's more convenient and often times cheaper, but if you want to work with a coffee mug, bowl, etc., you really should get Pebeo Porcelaine 150 Chalkboard Paint. This is specifically made for going into the oven and those other kinds are not.

Rule #3 - Do not use masking tape. Why? Well, if you want half the mug to be chalkboard and half not, you'll end up going from this:

Top half taped, bottom half painted = good

To this:

No straight line = bad

Chalkboard paint seems to laugh at masking tape, as if to say, "You think you can stop me from where I want to go? Ha!" I made sure the tape was pressed down tight against the mug but that didn't matter. So what do you do if your straight line has gone haywire? Get a damp paper towel and wipe away the mistakes. Now I removed the tape as soon as I was done painting, per the original post, so the paint was still wet enough to wipe away. Even if you decide to wait til the paint has dried, the paint can be chipped off up until you put it in the oven. 

Rule #4: Try to paint as evenly as possibly. Meaning, if you have drips down the sides, they will dry that way. If you have brush strokes on the mug, they'll dry that way. Just something to keep in mind.

Rule #5: Practice, practice, practice. Yes, the original blog's mug looks perfect and maybe yours doesn't. That's ok! Try again, learn from your mistakes, and make another! 

After waiting 24 hours for the mug to dry, I cranked up the oven to 300 degrees and set the mug on the wire racks for 35min, per the instructions on the paint bottle. It didn't say how long to let it cool so after the 35 minutes of baking, I waited an hour before removing it from the oven so it could be completely cool.

Don't forget to chalk the mug completely before putting it to good use! Now that you've baked it, it's microwave and dishwasher safe!

Just a little chemistry joke for you

TOTAL COSTS: About $9
$5.39 for Pebeo Porcelaine 150 Chalkboard Paint from Dick Blick (almost twice that on Amazon!)

$.80 for a box of chalk from Dick Blick

$2.99 mug from IKEA

Paintbrush and tape already on hand - remember, use painters tape!

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 26 hours
7 minutes to tape mug (I was spending a lot of time trying to get my line straight)

15 minutes to paint and fix my mistakes

24 hours to dry

35 minutes to bake

1 hour to cool down

EASY-PEASY SCALE: 3 out of 5
Now this is one of those projects that won't be perfect at first but you'll get better the more you do it so don't get discouraged. Besides, the more mistakes you make, the more "homemade" it looks! Have patience and have fun!