Halloween Recycle for Valentine's Day

I have to admit it I start a lot of projects with good intentions that never get finished. At Halloween I saw the cutest black bats all over doors, windows, entryways, and porches and I bought the supplies, cut out a lot of bats and never adhered them to anything(maybe next year). So I was looking for a valentine project and guess what I spotted...my stack of bats..laying there since Halloween. Poor guys. I have recycled them into Valentine treats for my daughter's class. I hope you like them. I just used some black construction paper, a crayola white pencil and some recycle butterfly glitter foam sticker cut into shapes of hearts.

Easiest Coconut Bon Bon Recipe

About 10 years ago I went to a candy making class and they gave us a book of recipes. I love coconut so one of the first ones I tried was the coconut bon bon recipe. It looked easy and only had 3 ingredients so that was my kind of recipe. After I tried it once I was addicted. I have made these coconut bon bons for every type of event and with every color chocolate wafer there is. This is equally good with chocolate and vanilla melts in my opinion. I made some recently for work for valentine's so I thought I would share these easy treats.

Here is the 3 ingredients you need:

14 oz - coconut

1 cup - light corn syrup

Chocolate melts

Here is what you do:

1.) Pour coconut in bowl

2.) Pour corn syrup in microwave safe dish.

3.) Heat corn syrup for 1 minute in microwave

4.) Pour corn syrup over coconut and mix well

5.) Refrigerate a couple hours(I usually refrigerate overnight but it is not necessary)

6.) Remove from fridge and form coconut mixture into balls and place on wax paper

7.) Melt chocolate

8.) Dip coconut balls into melted chocolate

9.) Decorate as desired or just leave as is

When I make these for parties they are always the first thing to go. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

School Snack Idea

It's wintertime and the kids are hungry...wait a minute they are always hungry for a little fun snack at school. This snack idea comes from my daughter. I'm so proud of her she came up with this on her own. It almost made me tear up it's so cute. Finally she is doing something like me...thinking of crazy snack ideas. If you like this idea please comment and let her know. She is very proud of it :) It's nuts...no it's crackers....well yes it's NUTCRACKERS. Isn't that fun???? We went to Sam's and bought some indivudually wrapped peanuts and individually wrapped crackers stuck them in a small cup and used some nutcracker scrapbook paper to decorate. I hope the kids enjoy these next week as much as we enjoyed making them. fyi...no one in Nat's class are allergic to nuts so this is possible. If they are allergic to nuts maybe you could put a picture of nuts as a tag on a bunch of crackers?

Valentine Treat Ideas

Now that Christmas is over I have been brainstorming Valentines Day ideas. I will use some of these ideas for my daughter's 1st grade class valentine exchange, some for snack days at School, and some will be filed for later years but I wanted to document them on the old handy dandy blog so I didn't lose them.

After searching the net for Valentine's ideas I highly recommend the following website with lots of pics and great Valentine ideas - http://skiptomylou.org/ I particularly love skiptomylou's "Bomb" Valentine and intend to make some this year but instead of bath bombs I will most likely filll with candy for my nephews class. Example and Pic created by Skip to My Lou website.

Below I have some more ideas for Valentine's fun and I will post pics as I make them. If you decide to make some of these ideas I would love to see your pics.

"You Rock Valentine" - Gather Rocks, paint them, and write "You Rock" on the rock with a sharpie. I think this one would be great for a boy valentine exchange. Could also use this saying with pop rocks candy as well.

"Your Dynamite Valentine" - Make some dynamite with pretzel rods, red chocolate and red twizzlers and create a tag that says "Your Dynamite Valentine. Wrap 3 pretzel sticks together with string twizzlers and place in ziploc with the tag. Make sure you make a wick for the dynamite.

"Stick with me Valentine" - Get some valentine stickers and put them in a little baggie and attach a label that says "Stick with me Valentine" or you could do sticks of gum.

"Your my main squeeze Valentine" - Lemonade caprisun with a tag that says "Your my main squeeze" - or for teacher a stress ball with a tag that says "Your my main squeeze"

"You color my world valentine" - A bag or box of crayons and a coloring page of a globe with a tag.

"Your a blast valentine" - A rocket ship made out of lifesavers

"You complete me Valentine" - A picture of your child cut into 4 or 5 puzzle pieces in a bag with a tag. Example created by me.

"You have a heart of Gold Valentine" - Gold foil wrapped chocolate hearts in a baggie with a tag.

"You warm my heart Valentine" - A paper or fabric pocket with a packet of hot chocolate. Example created by me :)

"You Rule Valentine" - A small ruler with a tag. Idea and pic from Family Fun Magazine website.

"You suit me to a TEA Valentine" - Tea bag in jewelry sized baggie with a tag.

"Poppin by to say Happy Valentine's Day - Microwave Popcorn with tag.

"I dig you" - Shovel with Candy - idea and pic from Family Fun Magazine website.

"I'm banana's over you Valentine - Banana with tag.

"You make me float Valentine - Balloon with tag.

"I'm nuts for your Valentine" - Individual bag of nuts with tag. Example created by me.

"I'm a sucker for your Valentine" Sucker with tag.

"We connect Valentine" - Individual connect 4 candy favors(found at Toys R Us) with tag.

We attract each other Valentine. magnets with a tag.

"Valentine, your all that and a bag of chips" - Bag of Chips with Tag

For Teacher:

"You shape me Valentine" - Cookie Cutter with tag

"I'm lucky to have you as a Teacher Valentine" - Lucky Charms or Rabbits Foot

"Glad to BEE your student" - Honey with tag attached.

"Your an un-frog-gettable teacher" - stuffed frog with tag

"There is only one thing that could make you a cooler Valentine - Ice Cream GC with this tag.

Please let me know if you like these ideas or can think of any others. If you create some of these items I would love to see them. Once I get out of the house, I'm snowed in at the moment, I will be creating some of these so check back for pics.

Snowman treats

I just learned how to upload to mosaic maker so I put together a snowman mosaic of things around the web that I love. Links below:

1. http://www.ehow.com/how_4456299_make-_snowman-gumball-bubble-ornament.html
2. http://familyfun.go.com/
3. http://www.matthewmeadstyle.com/2006_winter/htm/style.htm
4. http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1940965
5. http://barbschram.blogspot.com/
6. http://tasteofhome.com
7. http://www.blisstree.com
8. http://www.simpleflourishes.com
9. http://getsboredeasily.blogspot.com

Snowman bean bag toss

This was at the school's Christmas party last month. One of the dad's built this bean bag toss snowman game so the kids could play. I thought it turned out super cute. I just love the scarf they added on.

School Snack Idea - Halloween drink

Why not make the drinks you send into school fun for the kids as well? I always try to spruce the water or juice up in some way. This idea will work with just about any occasion but in the pics above I removed the water label and printed out a simple label for Halloween. I bought some Halloween treat bags and placed an individual sugar free cherry kool aid packet in side along with a Halloween straw. The label says "HAPPY HALLOWEEN. Mix powder with water to make your own Vampire blood". The kids loved this at their Halloween party and felt like they were getting a real treat.