Art Resources


We don't generally do a lot of art in our homeschool, but I'm trying to incorporate it more as my daughter loves it and I want to expose my son who's more partial to computers and robotics (and really not much else these days) to it. These are some resources that we've used or that I've found along the way.

Seasonal Art/Crafts

Color 

Art Prompts 

  • Art Prompts - when you need quick ideas for art, try art prompts

Playdough, Clay, Goo, Etc. 

Super Chewy Sugar Cookies

I remember when I was in college, they used to sell some of the best sugar cookies in the on campus cafe.  The other day I found an awesome recipe for sugar cookies, "The Best Chewy Sugar Cookies Recipe" from AddaPinch.com and I have to say, it is one of the best sugar cookies I've ever made.



Ingredients

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 1½ cups granulated sugar*
  • 1 egg
  • 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon Kosher salt ( I just used regular as it was what I had on hand)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar for rolling cookies

Directions


  1. Preheat oven to 350º F. 
  2. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.** Add egg and mix until well-combined.
  3. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt, and vanilla.
  4. Scoop cookie dough by the tablespoon full and roll into a ball.
  5. Add granulated sugar to a large bowl for rolling cookie dough in before baking. Place each ball of cookie dough into the bowl of granulated sugar and roll to coat well. Place cookie dough onto baking sheet, spacing about 1½-inches to 2 inches apart. Lightly press each cookie down. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned.***


Things we did

1. *Sugar - Now, I have a sweet tooth and I loved them, but some of my kids said they were too sweet (can you believe it?)  so you may want to decrease the amount of sugar.

2. **Creaming the butter and sugar. I usually always cream the butter and sugar in a recipe with just a wooden spoon but this time I decided to use the mixer for the three minutes and the dough came out so light and fluffy!  It was probably the softest cookie dough I've ever worked with.

3.  ***The directions call for cooking them 8-10. After 8 minutes they didn't look so done to me, so I left them in for 10 and I still wasn't satisfied so I ended up leaving them in for 15 minutes. I think this produced a crispier cookie than if I had left them in for the time specified, but they still had a great deal of chewiness to them, so I was satisfied.  I definitely want to try these again, in shaa Allah and I may reduce the time in the oven some from what I did this time as I know they still continue to cook on the cookie sheet for a bit.

Vinegar & Sugar Cucumbers

The name's not fancy, but this is one of my favorite foods from my childhood. My kids also love this. We made this today and my 11 year old told me that he firsts remembers eating cucumbers like this so when he had a plain cucumber some years ago he was disappointed  because he thought the cucumbers naturally tasted like this.

This is one of those recipes that you kind of have to tweak to fit your own tastes but here is a basic recipe:

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 - 3/4 cup white vinegar
  • 2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced

Directions:

Whisk the sugar, vinegar and salt together. Add cucumber slices. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. The longer it sits, the better it tastes.  The  next day is even better (but we can never wait that long).

Like I said, this is one of those recipes that you will probably end up tweaking. The original recipe that I used called for 1/2 cup sugar but I thought this was too much.  You can also add other things as well to add more taste.  Some additions or variations I've seen:
  • Add 1/4 teaspoon celery seed and 1/4 cup of onion and 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Use 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and 1/4 cup white vinegar instead of only white vinegar
  • Addition of 1 tablespoon dill or chives
  • If it's too tart, you can add in some water.

Pumpkin Fever!


I have to admit, there was a time when I couldn't understand what all the excitement over pumpkin was.

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

My 11 year old son and I made these cookies the other day. These may have been some of the chewiest cookies I've ever made. They were delicious!





Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 3 cups quick cooking oats
  •  

Directions



  1. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in oats. (We also added a packet of cocoa at this stage). Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour. (We skipped the chilling part this time around).
  2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls, and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Flatten each cookie with a large fork dipped in sugar.
  3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.



Fall Crafts: Paper Strip Pumpkin II

I seem to be drawn to paper strip crafts. They are really very easy though and maybe that's why. This is the second paper strip pumpkin we've done this fall, the first one is here.  

I got the idea for this craft from the Hostess with the Mostess blog.


What you need:


  • Orange construction paper (in addition to it I used Astro Brights orange paper)
  • Scissors
  • Paper clips or staples
  • Green construction paper (for leaves)
  • Brown construction paper (for stem)

What you do

Essentially you just cut the orange paper into strips and attach them with a paper clip or staple. The strips are of different lengths and you match up the ends. Then, add leaves and a stem. At the Hostess with the Mostess blog, she explains the number of strips and lengths so I'll leave that to her.  For my leaves, I used this template below and printed it out on green Astro Brights paper.

You can find this leaf and other leaf templates from my Pinterest Pin here.

I ended up using staples and paper clips to keep my strips together and I punched a hole in the top so that I could hang them up. Other than that, I pretty much followed her simple directions. 


I made three and am making a little banner/mobile with maybe leaves and pine cones to add in, in sha Allah.