Sunbeam Play Dough: a Recipe

For anyone that reads this blog that doesn't know what a Sunbeam is; no it is not a beam or ray of sunlight. In our church the Sunbeams are the children age 3 that will turn 4 in the coming year. This year is the first year they are out of Nursery and in Primary with all the other big kids. They are the cutest and best class on the planet! I get the opportunity every Sunday to be in the Sunbeam class with another teacher and we get to teach this great group of kids. There are 8 kids in our class and I wanted to do something special for the kids on their birthday. The only guidelines I wanted to follow were:
1. Quick
2. Easy
3. Inexpensive
The kids are 4 so this shouldn't be too hard right? But with my lack of experience and having no kids myself I didn't quite know what I should do. So I asked a girl at work who in my opinion is awesome with kids and she has four of her own that were 4 once; what would a 4 year old like to get for their birthday that fits my requirements?
PLAY DOUGH!

And from there it was just too dang easy! I pulled out the book, threw together some dough, got a ton of pretty awesome cookie cutters, made a few tags and I am ready for the year baby!!
The first child's birthday was last week so I had to get on this little project pretty quick. I decided to go ahead and make all the tags at once so I have them all and they will be ready when I need them. This will totally come in handy if I forget a birthday is coming up and don't have time to recreate this on the computer. I love it when I think ahead.

Aren't these just so stinking cute, I love it when an idea in my head comes out so well in real life! I decided to use some Mod Podge to glue the label to the jar so it would stick like a real label.
The play dough recipe I have makes a ton of play dough so I only made a quarter recipe and also made it bright blue for Andrew.

Play Dough @ Max Power                          Recipe @ 25%

1 1/2 C. Salt                                                 1/4 C. + 2 T. Salt

5 C. Flour                                                     1 1/4 C. Flour

1/4 C. Oil                                                     1 TB. Oil

2 TB. Cream of Tartar                                 1 1/2 tsp. Cream of Tartar

2 3/4 C. Boiling Water                                 1/2 C. + 3 TB. Boiling Water

Food coloring (optional)                              Food coloring (optional)

Combine salt and flour in a large bowl and mix.

Add oil and cream of tartar.

If desired, add food coloring to boiling water; then pour water into salt mixture.

Mix completely and knead into dough.

Add more flour as needed until dough has reached desired consistency.

Store in an airtight container or bag. (In my case a darling birthday jar.)

 

The only thing left to do now is decide what cookie cutters you want to give away. This was the most difficult part for me because they were all so stinking cute! My advice for anyone wanting to do a project like this, buy a pack for you and a pack to give away. I got this awesome pack of animals at JoAnn's and was able to use my 50% off coupon. Talk about a steal, it was fantastic! Andrew ended up getting a dinosaur and a I believe this one was the cow.

I'm so happy I've got an entire year of Sunbeam birthdays planed and ready to go; the only thing left to do now is wait for May when the next birthdays roll around!

PS: If you would like this gift tag/label shoot me an email: abenchproduction {at} gmail {dot} com and I will be happy to whip it up for you! :) Below is one I made for my niece's birthday coming up.

mmmmm

I've made a few things recently that I need to post about!

First off, the Aloha card!

This I made for a friend's wedding reception/baby shower. They were married in December and had a BBQ Luau to celebrate this summer.

I think it turned out super cute I love the palm tree!

So my birthday was earlier this month and I decided to whip up a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. It was supper yummy!

So here is a great frosting:

Take 1 Strawberry Jello packet and dissolve in a little water or milk then add the powdered sugar, vanilla extract and butter. Tastes great as long as the Jello packet is dissolved otherwise it is very grainy.

It was a very yummy cake, but not very pretty :)

Last weekend I decided to try a new cookie recipe. 

I used a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I have but instead of adding the chocolate chips I added a few chopped up mini-Butterfinger bars! MMMM it was so good!

A couple of weeks ago there was a birthday at my office and one of the girls made these chocolate cupcakes! So I had to snap a few shots!

Doesn't it look delicious!
And the last thing I must share:
D's cake!

He did such a good job on this, he made it all by himself while I was at work then I came home and made some frosting and he decorated it all by himself! I'm so proud of him, it was such a yummy cake!
mmmmmmm

My favorite cookies: a Recipe

I try to bake something at least once a week and I like to try new things each time. But when you get that craving for your favorite cookies you just have to pull out the oats and get baking! These are my most favorite cookies in the world, nothing tops these yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of milk!

Oatmeal Spice Cookies

In a small bowl combine:

1 C Flower

½tsp Salt

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cinnamon

½tsp Nutmeg

In a stand mixer add:

¾C Brown Sugar

¾C Chocolate Chips

½C Sugar

3 C Oatmeal

¾ C Butter, softened

1 Egg

1tsp Vanilla extract

Gradually add in flour mixture.

Spoon onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 12 mins.

Enjoy with milk!

Make them and enjoy them, they are wonderful!

I was also able to make a few cards this week.

A friend of mine got married last week and so I made a card for them. 

The colors on their wedding invitation were lavender, white and black. Unfortunately I don't have anything lavender at all so I just went with a classic Black and White card. I hope they like it!

I'm so glad I have this wedding stamp set, I've been able to really wear it out this year!

My Uncle's birthday is today so I made him a card this weekend and sent if off in the mail. Boy cards are really hard for me to make. I don't have a lot of stamp sets that are boy and I love to use ribbon which isn't very manly. I think this one turned out really great though even with the ribbon.

The simpler you keep things I think the better when it comes to masculine cards. The over embellishment is what makes them look so girlie I think.

But boys still like the detail you put into a card and appreciate the time and effort to make something just for them. I hope he likes this one!

Until next time.... happy creating!

Birthday Card

I wanted to try another Stamping 411 challenge and I liked the style of the baby card so much I used it to make my Father-in-law's Birthday Card!

It turned out so cute, I loved it! 

The bear is so fun! I wish I would have taken a shot of the inside, it was different and really cute too! Here is the envelope, I added the trees to go with the bear, I just can't stand plain white envelopes.

I've got another wedding card to make this week! I'll post it soon!

Very Productive

This was such a great weekend! The weather was awesome, I spent a ton of time outside with the puppies, and got a lot of fun stuff done!
It was my Aunt's birthday on Saturday so I made a card for her. I love it!

I went over to Stamping 411 to use their sketch! These are so much fun to do, it makes creating a great card super quick, cute and easy! I love how it turned out! The blue is really pretty together. I really need to get some new stamp sets though, I only have a few I can use for birthdays and I feel like they are getting worn out.
The thing I love most about this card is how it opens. I had 2 pieces of the dark blue and I really didn't want to cut a brand new piece so I decided I would clip them both together and it can slide open. I love it! I've never done one like this and it's super cute!
I purchased some awesome, very 'loud' fabric the other day to redo our kitchen chairs. The chairs are great, and perfect for our place. They were covered with a cream microfiber fabric. It's nice and neutral, matched really well but I wanted something a little more bold.
So after a trip to Home Depot to get a staple gun and a drill (so excited for the endless possibilities with both these purchases) we came home and I got to work. This took me about 45 minutes to complete. Ironing was the most time consuming part of this whole makeover. I am happy to introduce you to this wonderful new set of chairs! So what do you think?

I am totally in love with these now! Before when I would walk into the kitchen I didn't really notice the chairs unless they weren't pushed in property. Now I walk around the corner and I am a little surprised every time! It makes me so happy! And it was so much fun and easy! This makes me excited to tackle my big reupholstering project but that still wont be for a while.

Ahhhhhh so beautiful!!
I also snuck in a little baking this weekend! I just love to make yummy treats!
Danny bought me a mini muffin/cupcake pan a couple weeks ago and I've just been dying to try it out! We had a Funfetti cake mix in the pantry so I pulled it out and threw them together. Made some basic frosting and added a little blue food coloring. I think I liked them a little better without the frosting but either way these little cake poppers are so yummy! You could throw down quite a few very easily! And we sure did, they go really fast!
I hope you had a wonderful weekend yourself!

Stop by soon for more fun!

Two Birthdays

Wow, this month is crazy with the amount of birthdays and other things going on! I still have like 4 or 5 cards I need to make. Here are some photos of the cute little birthday cards I've made for a couple of my cousins that have had birthdays so far this month.

This first one was for my cousin who is off at college. I hope she liked it!

I just love this little cake, it's so cute!

And this second card is one I did for my cousin that's in middle school.

I love the bright colors! I never get to do super bright cards and this one was a lot of fun.

On the inside I added this little saying with some dimensionals.

Amy really liked it, I'm so glad!

More to come soon, I have to make quite a few new ones this weekend!

Stay tuned....

Baking and Card Making!

This past week has been a lot of fun! I was just needing to make something sweet so I pulled out the Jiff Peanut Butter and cranked out these delicious Peanut Butter Cookies! They have got to be the best ones I have ever made. They were quick and easy and so much fun. Mmmmm smelled really good too!

I just added the chocolate chips on top after they came out of the oven because nothing goes better with peanut butter then chocolate!

Friday was my uncle's birthday so I put together this sweet little card for him!

I just love this set and the little bone!

Then the envelope, I always have to put something on it to spice it up. Nothing is more boring then a plain white envelope.

Saturday Danny and I went to a wedding reception for our friends. Their colors were black white and hot pink. It was so pretty! Here is the card I made for them.

I love these little fan things so I made one for the card and used hot pink ribbon to tie on the pearls.

The inside is pretty too, with a little flower in the corner.

And then the envelope!

They had the most delicious cake at the reception. It was chocolate with a peanut butter filling. I decided on Sunday afternoon that I needed to recreate this. It worked pretty well, the filling was perfect. The only problem was that I just had too much of it. When I put the top layer on the cake and started frosting the top with vanilla frosting that was just a little too thin the cake cracked and I got the Grand Canyon right down the middle.

I used toothpicks to hold it up and threw on the mini chocolate chips to hide my mess up. It sure was yummy though, no matter what it looked like on the outside!
That's it for last week! Maybe this week I will have some time to do more fun stuff! We'll see!

Sweet little Birthday card

Sunday was my sister-in-law's birthday so I created a card I hope she will love!
I used 2 shades of pink, a red and white. I was a little nervous after I got all the pieces cut out that it wouldn't tie together very well. I didn't know what color inks to use, I don't have all the same ones as the paper. I had to use pink, red and purple and I didn't have any ribbon to match it at all! But it turned out great, I love it! I hope she enjoys it! It's going in the mail today!
The center of each of the flowers is a large dot of white glitter, a little hard to tell from the photos. After I finished the card I stamped the envelope with white, it says "I Love You." You should be able to see it in this shot, bottom left corner. Took forever to dry, I hope it's not smudged by the time it gets to her!

Recent Projects

It's been awhile sense I have had a post. I would just like to share some of the projects I have done recently.

This is a Birthday card I made a couple months ago for my sister-in-laws birthday, Danny helped me on it. It turned out super cute I think!

This is a collage I did with our engagement photos. Pretty much one of my most favorite things in my living room!

Supper yummy Apple Pie!!

mmm this was so fun to eat

Snowmen for Christmas!!

These are made with soda pop bottles, SO CUTE!

I just had to share these boots! I totally want the giraffes :)

Sweet treat for my nephew's birthday!

Christmas JOY!

Carrot cake for my Mom's birthday, oh so good!

Christmas tiles

Hope you enjoyed the fun.