Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts

Christmas Baking

2 comments Posted by Kristine at 12/11/2010 08:27:00 AM

Cookies
Candy

© Martha Stewart

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Holiday Stories in the Public Domain

0 comments Posted by Kristine at 7/29/2010 05:36:00 PM


Copies of most of the following can be ordered via the Espresso Book Machine at Third Place Book's Lake Forest Park location for around $9-13./book.
For a wide variety of thematic lists, see: Books for Boys and Girls 

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4th of July Fun

0 comments Posted by Kristine at 7/06/2010 07:46:00 PM























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4th of July Fun

0 comments Posted by Kristine at 7/03/2010 12:04:00 PM


4th of July Bunting (Tutorial here)


DIY Decorations from Country Living

DIY Decorations from Martha Stewart

DIY Decorations from Twig and Thistle

Patriotic Jello from Glorious Treats

Cupcakes from Good Housekeeping

4th of July Picnic Tablescape Ideas from StoneGable

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St. Valentine's Day

1 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/10/2010 07:02:00 AM

This day is widely celebrated among persons of all ages by the exchange of missives or gifts called 'valentines.' Although of uncertain origin, the festival has been observed in much the same manner ever since the fourteenth century, or possibly earlier. It is a favorite day for parties, especially among young people. Gay favors and decorations of red paper hearts and chubby cupids, fortune-telling games, and appropriate refreshments of frosted heart cakes and crimson candies, all pay fitting honor to the memory of good Saint Valentine, patron of sweet-hearts and lovers. ~ Book of Festivals by Dorothy Spicer
This week, I've been busy trying to come up with some ideas for our annual Valentine's Day celebration. Last year, I posted this Valentine's Day Craft Compendium, and as always, Martha Stewart has some of my favorite ideas, which can be found here: Valentine's Day Crafts, Valentine's Day Crafts for Kids, and Valentine's Day Treats. The Crafty Crow has excellent posts here and here. For vintage inspiration, see Dame Curtsey's Book of Novel Entertainments for Every Day of the Year by Ellye Howell Glover (c.1908). My list this year isn't quite as extensive as last year's, but there are some cute ideas:
Crafts
Simply Handcrafted Valentine's Day Decor from Better Homes & Gardens
Treats
Printables
    Inspiration

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    A History of Valentine's Day

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/02/2010 01:58:00 PM

    A very thorough and interesting article from Cosmopolitan, c. 1900. Clicking on the image will take you to the complete article:


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    Tie-Dye Easter Eggs

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 4/04/2009 09:25:00 PM

    Today I stumbled across this very cool Tie-Dye Eggs Kit from Maude + Claude at Mahar Drygoods. The kit contains everything you need to create paisley, striped, and polka dotted Easter eggs using recycled vintage neckties. Each kit is only $8.95 and orders placed before April 8th should arrive in time for Easter. We can't wait to try it out!

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    Lesson Plans for Ireland and St. Patrick's Day

    1 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/01/2009 07:52:00 PM

    For a study of Ireland and/or Saint Patrick's Day, topics might include: St. Patrick's Day Traditions, Irish Legends & Folklore, History of Ireland, Celts, The Irish Potato Famine, Immigration of the Irish, etc.

    Mapwork

    Other Printables
    • The Shamrock Patch Game (G 5-8): A game to review facts learned about Ireland.
    • St. Patrick's Day Maze: A nice maze from MakingFriends.com.
    • St. Patrick's Day Word Search from MakingFriends.com.
    • A Visit to Ireland: Scavenger hunt worksheet to learn facts about Ireland.
    • ABCTeach has a huge list of St. Patrick's Day printables.
    • Ireland Theme Unit from EdHelper.com.
    • Scholastic also has a terrific huge list of printables, though alas, a monthly membership is required (memberships start at $8.99/month).
    • Teacher Vision also has a great list of printables (67 in all for grade K-12), including some fun crafts and activities. A membership is required, however the first three printables are free OR new users may opt for a 7-day free trial.
    • Apples 4 the Teacher has a variety of free St. Patrick's Day printables.
    Coloring Sheets
    Lesson Plans

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    St. Patrick's Day Food

    2 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/01/2009 05:06:00 PM

    Sweet

    Savory
    Many, many additional recipes can be found at the following sites: Irish Tea Traditons, Timeless Treasure Trunk: St. Patrick's Day, Luck of the Irish, Irish Recipes, St. Patrick's Day Recipes, Irish Recipes and Baking, Irish Cuisine, etc.

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    More Books on Ireland

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/01/2009 03:26:00 PM

    This afternoon I ran to the local library and was greatly distressed to discover that someone beat me to all of the St. Patrick's Day books available, excepting two (quite by luck, since they weren't on the same shelf as the others!). While I normally prefer to buy our books anyway, in this case I'd hoped to borrow many since I'm already desperately short on time. Here's what I did manage to find:

    For myself I picked up The Irish Way: A Walk Through Ireland's Past and Present which I suspect will displace Abundance as this week's selection for "52 Books..." Also, I was reminded that we already have a book about Saint Patrick (as part of Sonlight Core 6), Flame Over Tara by Madeleine Polland. Therefore, we'll be dividing our month in this way...the first two weeks we'll read "Flame Over Tara," followed by Celtic fairy tales, myths and legends. I think. Returning back to Amazon to determine what I needed to purchase, I came across the following to supplement my earlier list:
    Picture Books
    • Katie's Wish by Barbara Shook Hazen - About the Irish potato famine
    • Market Day by Eve Bunting - Set in an Irish village
    Also, I checked The Baldwin Project for books that were available free online, there we have:
    Lastly, if we had more time, we'd read the Bantry Bay Series by Hilda Van Stockum - a fictional series from the 1930s, set in Glengarriff, County Cork, Ireland.

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    Crafts for St. Patrick's Day

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/01/2009 12:18:00 PM

    Despite my earnest efforts, I came up mostly empty-handed while looking for Irish/St. Patrick's Day crafts that weren't completely tacky. True it's not exactly a major holiday, but somehow I expected more options than were available. Nevertheless, Little Irish Blessings had quite a thorough list and The Crafty Crow has a great round up as well; here's what else I came up with:

    I also found some DIY decor ideas: The Felt Mouse @ Flickr, JannyPie.com. Sadly, that is all for now.
    "Good Luck Garden" from Gooseberry Patch

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    Irish Movies and Music

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/01/2009 09:52:00 AM

    This morning I had a rather inspired idea...I've decided that for the month of March, we will take a "time out" from our regularly scheduled history studies and focus instead on the rich history and traditions of Ireland. My new history schedule is coming together quite neatly and will allow time for this, so I expect it to be quite fun!

    Needless to say, because I hadn't exactly planned for this, it will take some scrambling to throw together a decent plan...I would imagine that we'll mostly read, watch a lot of movies and documentaries, listen to some Irish music and enjoy some Irish food.

    Since I've already covered many of the books, let's move on to movies and music:

    Irish Movies

    (See also: The Irish in Film database)

    *Contains some violence

    Documentaries
    *Not available from Netflix

    Irish Music

    This list is far from comprehensive, I merely picked what appeared most interesting to me:

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    Books for St. Patrick's Day

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/01/2009 09:33:00 AM

    Books with an Irish Theme (Many discovered via By Sun and Candlelight):

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    Valentine's Day Party Recap

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/15/2009 04:08:00 PM


    By now it's probably pretty obvious that our Valentine's Day Party didn't go exactly as I'd planned. In typical fashion, I tried to do entirely too much and it took way longer than expected. Since I almost always do this (without trying of course), I don't know why the results still surprise me!

    Nevertheless, after two days of preparation, we did have a little party Saturday evening that was thoroughly enjoyed by all. We had a nice candle lit dinner, followed by goodie bags of candy and loads of baked treats...we only got one craft accomplished, but in the end that was fine since we were all quite worn out!

    See's candy from my Mom, yum!

    A string of mini heart lights added to the ambiance ;-)

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    More Baking

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/15/2009 03:10:00 PM

    For our Valentine's Day Party, we also made sugar cookies...


    ...vanilla cupcakes, mini heart-shaped cakes and strawberry cupcakes. Maddie was my helper:

    The heart-shaped cakes were supposed to look like this, but by the end of two very long days of baking, everything got frosted with the Sprinkles' Strawberry Frosting and that was that...

    Naturally it was later established that my kids didn't like the strawberry frosting (which I thought was quite good!), so now I've got counters full of cupcakes (and mini cakes!) that no one but the neighbor kids will eat.

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