8 bit Cookie - Mario

So anyone who knows me best knows that I love to be creative and I love to bake. Even more than that I love video games. Why not combine these things somehow? I decided to take an 8 bit image of one of the classic video game characters (I chose Mario) and turn it into a cookie..... pixel by pixel.

Understand, this was fun for me, I do not consider it a waste of time and I may even try it again one day (not anytime soon, I'm cookied out right now haha). This cookie did take some planning, aside from choosing my image I had to graph it, plan for colors and supplies for dough. Though I did not take pictures of the entire dough making / coloring process (that was my quality mommy son time) - I do have pictures of the assembly.  I hope you enjoy.

To be exact, the cookie had exactly 324 pixels, i.e. strips of cookie dough and contained 6 different colors. The cookie pictured was my test baking subject to get a feel of what temp and time it needs. The final product is a little off from the original design, but that's what you get when you work with melting cookie dough that's weighing down on itself :) .... Over all I'm happy with the outcome and plan to bake the rest and dip the backs in chocolate!

                                                                                              Modern Mommy - Rachel

Salt Dough Project

          So today happens to be my husbands birthday, sadly he had to work a double shift... But it turned out great for Brodie and I to be able to make a special present for him while he was away.

          We decided to make some salt dough and make some hand/foot impressions in it for Daddy. It was really easy and fun to do with a toddler who loves to touch things. Here is what you will need :

1 cup salt

2 cups flour

1 cup luke warm water
2-3 tbsp of ground cinnamon (to give the dough a nice scent)
food coloring
foil
preheated oven to 250° F

          After you have everything you need, choose the color you want your dough to be and mix it with your 1 cup of water. Blend your dry ingredients together in a large bowl and gradually stir in your water. Mix well until it forms a doughy consistency. With your hands form a ball with your dough and kneed it. The longer you kneed your dough the smoother it will be.

          Now that you have your ball of dough - the possibilities are endless. We made an impression of Brodie's hand and foot by rolling out a section of dough to about a 1/2 inch, but you can make any thing you want. Mold it into figurines, craft it into letters or numbers. You could even flatten it and use cookie cutters on it for really clean shapes. Reminder: If you want to hang it, make sure to add a hole with a straw before it dries.

          You can let your salt dough creations air dry OR it can be dried in the oven. Bake at 250° F. The amount of time needed to bake your creations depends on size and thickness; really thin objects may take 45 minutes to an hour. Whereas thicker creations can take 2-3 hours or more. Just pay attention to your piece by checking it every now and again.

Final Project - I had some glaze spray laying around, so I gave ours a finishing touch.

                                                                                   



                                                                                      Modern Mommy - Rachel

Fathers Day

          So for Father's Day my son and I decided to do some crafts for Daddy and Grandpa. A childhood favorite of mine was always 'Shrinky Dinks'. What an easy and perfect opportunity to do something fun with my growing toddler!

• Preheated oven to  350°
• #6 Plastic
• Nail File or Sand Paper
• Colored pencils or Permanent markers
• Scissors
• Baking sheet covered in foil

          First you need to start with #6 Plastic. You can either buy this from a craft store OR if you like to save money like I do, you can look around your house for a clear plastic food container that you got from the grocery store. Make sure it is a #6 plastic though - We have experimented with other numbers of plastic and they do not shrink up the same. You can tell you have a #6 plastic by looking on the container for a triangle shaped recycling symbol with a number 6 in the middle.

          If you bought your plastic from the craft store then you're ready to go, if not, then cut any excess plastic away to make a flat sheet. File one side of the surface area in a crosshatch or circular pattern. After your sheet of plastic is all filed, then its time to color!

          Draw your design on the sanded side of the plastic sheet. Remember - the total image will shrink to about a third of its original size, and five or six times its original thickness. When you have a doodle worthy of shrinking, cut it out and place it on the baking tray that is coated with foil. When cutting your design out, remember edges can become very sharp  and can also end up breaking off of your piece, so its best to choose a simple cut around your image.

          Place your art on the tray and place it in the oven for 60 - 90 seconds. For the first minute your art will start to curl up... DON'T PANIC! It will flatten itself out. (Total time for a large piece 5-6” starting size will be about 3 1/2 minutes)

          After they shrink, you can carefully remove them from the oven rack, and let them cool for a couple minutes. If you're still concerned with the curling after the piece comes out; you have about 10 seconds to flatten or mold it to your desired shape after it comes out. Of course its going to be hot, so I recommend placing a heavy object on to to flatten it out.

Daddy got some fancy guitar picks!

We made Grandpa a special 'sales' tag to hang from a shirt.

The cut outs on the foil lined baking sheet.

A Year's Growth

Monthly Giraffe Photos

          When our son was born, we realized how quickly babies grow and decided to document it in some way. Sp we propped him next to my favorite giraffe for a size comparison to snap a picture each month around the day of his birthday. Some pictures were easier to get than others the older he got and the more he wanted to squirm haha!

          Overall though, I'm glad we did it and I recommend doing this in any form to have snapshot memories of your infants growing into toddlers right in front of your eyes! I hope you enjoy and I hope this gives you a vision of your own.

                                                                                      Modern Mommy - Rachel

Brodie's 1st Birthday!

          So for my sons first birthday I wanted to do something really special. A lot of people told me he wont remember so not to really worry about it; but my husband and I will remember and outside from it being our sons first birthday, it was a celebration for us too, getting to watch him grow up. We wanted to make it fun and special for everyone involved.

          Of course I was on Pinterest looking for ideas. Checking Google for decorations. Browsing eBay, Amazon and Etsy for off the wall items I might be able to include. Planning this party turned into a fun side hobby for me. I told my husband - "Planning my wedding = Stressful. Planning Brodie's birthday party = Gratifying and fun."

          I then decided on a theme.... At the time I was doing research for my sons party, Dr. Seuss' birthday was right around the corner so a lot of really cute Dr. Seuss related items were popping up everywhere. That was when I decided to go with that theme, since it was too convenient to pass up haha. Being a cute kids theme was an added bonus!

          With cheap scrap-booking paper and card stock, I made everything from the invitations, to the banner; displaying pictures from each month of his life up to that point. Other than decorations, the funnest thing to plan overall had to be the menu! The Dr. Seuss books gave us sooooo many neat ideas, it was hard to keep the menu at a reasonable size........ But this is what we ended up with - Green (deviled) Eggs & Ham, Yertle the (caramel) Turtles, Hop on Pop (corn), Red Fish Blue Fish (jigglers), Roast Beast (teriyaki chicken, and marinated steak skewered on sticks and grilled), Then of course there was veggies, cake (that his Aunt Holly made!), cookies, cupcakes and other extras.

          I'm sorry for not having a how to for any of this, I'm starting this blog a few months after his birthday took place. Hopefully the pictures (shared in a link at the bottom of this post) will help with ideas and be an inspiration for other parties. I will state - Other than the specialty cookies I ordered (All Things Exquisite - The company I used for the fabulous cookies), everything else was made by myself with some helping hands from grandma. Almost all the decorations, other than the truffula trees (The Shower Planner - The company I used for the truffula trees) were items I found in the dollar store or dollar section of Target!

Dr. Seuss Party Album

                                                                   
                                                                                           Modern Mommy - Rachel

Fun Food from the Marshall House!