Easy Dough Ornaments For Easter, Or Anytime!

Here is a very simple recipe for craft dough for making cool ornaments. These dry quickly so there isn’t an overnight-wait period for little crafters 🙂

This dough is great to use for any ornament shapes, using cookie cutters, and you’ll want to have some colorful yarn, or ribbons, on hand for hanging the sweet creations when finished.  After the paint dries, Captain likes to write her name and the date on the back with a black, fine-tip permanent marker, which adds such a nice touch for gifts for family.  This is a perfect Easter craft too, as a simple egg shape looks adorable with any colors or patterns!

Method

4 cups flour, 1-1/2 cups water, 1 cup salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.  Combine flour, salt and water (excellent time to let the kids measure & mix!) and after mixing well, knead for 10 minutes (let the kiddos set the timer and help knead too!).

Roll out onto floured surface and cut into desired shapes.  Make a hole for hanging.  Bake for 30 minutes and allow to cool.

Paint with tempera paints and allow to dry. You can now write on them with permanent markers, if you like. Spray with clear polyurethane on both sides.  Hang from ribbons.  I hope you enjoy making these with your little ones…

Good thoughts, Karen

Make a Spring Bunny Cake!

A cute bunny cake with paper ears and toothpick whiskers.  The shredded coconut hides any “blobby” spots (as Captain says) after the kids help frost it

We made this bunny cake last year, and even though Captain was REALLY excited to eat it, she actually thought it was too sweet made with regular powdered sugar icing and sweetened coconut.  This year we plan to use a recipe that I found on Pinterest from The Hungry Mouse in Massachusetts.  Here’s the link for Buttermilk Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.  There are a lot of bunny cake ideas to choose from, but we opted for something that wasn’t too complicated for the littles.  This one comes from Julie Mitchell and can be found at education.com.

Method

You’ll need:  one 8″ round cake of any flavor, 2 cups of white frosting, shredded coconut, construction paper, toothpicks, jelly beans, or something on hand, for eyes and nose.

Cut cooled cake in half. Frost 1/2 of the cake and press the two halves together and place upright on cake stand so the frosting holds them together.  It should look like a half-circle standing up. This is the bunny’s body.

Cut out a small, triangle-shaped notch of cake, about 1/3 of the way up one end of the body to make the bunny’s head.  Holding the head in place, frost the rest of the cake.  Sprinkle and press the coconut on for bunny “fur”.  Add eyes, nose and toothpick whiskers.

Cut bunny ears from construction paper and press them into the head. Voila!  Putting easter-grass around the cake is pretty cute and we added some fresh cut daffodils too.

I think it is beneficial to take any opportunity in baking and crafting to talk about measurements (math) with little kids.  It is NOT important that they understand exactly what “1/3 of the way up the bunny’s body” is!  But showing kids, as you do it together, how to look at a cake in 1/3’s is cool.  I am always a proponent of not cramming it down the kiddo’s throats, but letting them brush up against things and let the cake crumbs fall where they may :).

Here’s to the good old days that are right now!

Cheers, Karen