Crafts

Check Out This Fun & Easy Hot Cocoa Craft For Kids

September 2, 2019 By Paula 10 Comments

Hot Cocoa Craft For Kids

A great pretend play project!

As the kids head back to school it’s always fun to have activities that you can do with them on the weekend. In this hot cocoa craft for kids, they will decorate their own mugs with some of our favorite things: anything sparkly and shiny, stickers of all kinds, and (real or fake) marshmallows! When finished, children can pretend they are drinking their cup of cocoa.

This hot chocolate craft is incredibly easy to do (especially with our provided mug template). These also make great Christmas tree ornaments, gift tags, personalized place holders, and more.

Supplies:

Hot Cocoa Mug Template (Print and/or Download from PDF Large Fun Size HERE or Small Gift Tag Size Here)
Craft Foam, Colored Paper, or Construction Paper
Scissors
Adhesive (Rubber Cement, Glue Gun, or School Glue)
Mini marshmallows, Cotton Balls, or Mini White Pom-Pom Balls
Decoration Ideas: Crayons, Markers, Gems, Glitter, Sequins, Buttons, Stickers, chocolate syrup or paint, ETC.

Directions:

Print out the template and cut out the mug.
If you would like your mug out of foam. Place the paper mug on it and trace. Cut it out and draw a “D” inside the handle.
Paint Hot Cocoa using chocolate syrup, crayon, colored pencil, or paint. Then, glue marshmallows at the top.
Decorate the mug using whatever you like!
Now you have a mug of hot cocoa to enjoy!

Frozen Hot Chocolate! We're Enjoying Our Favorite Tootsie Roll Hot Cocoas Cold For The Ultimate Hot Chocolate Experience! #HotChocolate #Dessert #TrickorTreat #Halloweeen #FrozenTreat #Food #Recipe

If you’d like to make some hot cocoa to enjoy while you’re making these be sure to check out these Frozen Hot Chocolate Recipes and for a little kick check out this Mexican Hot Cocoa Fiesta Drink.

If you are looking for a sweet idea for Valentine’s Day this yummy hot cocoa gift is sure to be loved by sweethearts, family, co-workers, teachers, and friends.

Preserve Your Memories With This Easy-To-Use Laminating Machine

November 2, 2016 By Paula Leave a Comment

What a great gift idea for the crafter on your gift list!

This Marigold 9″ Thermal Laminator is designed in USA with NTC technology. It has the reliable function of temperature adjustment and cold lamination. This unit can be used with a variety of pouch sizes, up to 9″ wide and with its quick five minute warm-up time you are laminating in no time. Thanks to three separate temperature settings: cold, three mil, and five mil all your projects are professional looking.

To get you started two three mil letter sized thermal pouches were included with the laminator. So when our Marigold 9″ Pouch Thermal Laminator arrived we were able to do a few projects right away. I had handwritten recipe cards from my grandmothers, maps for hiking trips, pictures, and more. All of which I wanted to preserve.

The hardest part behind me, deciding what I wanted to laminate first, I found the setup and operation as simple as brewing my morning cup of coffee. Power on, let it warm up, slide my project in, and let the machine do the rest. After about a minute my newly laminated recipe cards were ready. Then, I laminated some sheets that I use for my grocery lists. Now I have three reusable cards that I can attach to the refrigerator with a magnet or use and reuse for notes while working. Marcus and I are both thrilled with how well this device is designed and constructed. We are confident that it will bring us years of use.

The 3 Best Fun Thanksgiving Food Ideas – Pilgrim Hats, Oreo Turkeys, and Sugar Cone Cornucopias

November 4, 2013 By Paula 1 Comment

I did a lot of searching and have gathered what I believe are the 3 best fun Thanksgiving food ideas from across the web that the kids are sure to love!

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Thanksgiving Pilgrim Hats

The best of 3 Fun Food Thanksgiving Ideas - Pilgrim Hats, Oreo Turkeys, and Sugar Cone Cornucopias

Ingredients:

Chocolate Wafer Cookies (such as Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers or Keebler Fudge Stripe)
1 tube orange or yellow frosting with piping tips
1 Bag small peanut butter cups or chocolate-covered marshmallows

Directions:

Place cookies on work surface; squeeze a dime-size dot of frosting in the center of each
Prepare chocolate-coated marshmallows or
Unwrap and invert peanut butter cups on frosting, pressing down gently
Using the round piping tip, pipe a “hat-band” with frosting around peanut butter cup or marshmallow and a square “buckle.”
Store airtight at room temperature up to 3 days. Let frosting set before storing.

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Oreo Thanksgiving Turkeys

Ingredients:

Double Stuff Oreo Cookies
Candy Corn
Whoppers
Peanut butter Cups

Chocolate frosting
Yellow Frosting
Optional: Red frosting
Optional: black sprinkles for eyes

First step: Grab a cookie. You don’t have to put frosting in there, but I like to because it holds in the candy corn a little better. Just give it a little squeeze of chocolate.

Then stuff in your candy corn. If you’re in some sort of candy corn shortage, you can cut off the white tips to use later for your beaks. I think the candy corn sticks in better with the tip so I leave it on. Go ahead and do all of the cookies through this step.

Next, put a dab of frosting on the opposite end of the cookie and secure it to the “base” cookie. It helps to place them next to a wall as they dry so they stay put.

While those are drying, unwrap your PB cups. Take a sharp knife and cut a sliver off of one end. (I don’t need to tell you what to do with the sliver, do I?) It helps to gently cut in a sawing motion so you don’t break the PB cup. (I don’t have to tell you what to do with a broken one, do I?) Cut it from the bottom like shown here:

Once those are ready, flip your cookies over, but you may find it’s easy to keep them next to the wall. My frosting was a bit soft, so they needed the extra support.

Place a dab of frosting on the PB cup, and place it on the cookie like so:

Now those little guys will need heads, so glue a whopper on there with frosting as well. I put frosting on the side of the whopper that hits both the cookie and the PB cup. Wouldn’t want a turkey running around with its head cut off, would we??

While they’re still laying there, use a dab of frosting (I use yellow) and glue on the white tip of a candy corn for a beak. Put two yellow dots on for eyes, and for the black spots in the eyes you can use a dab of chocolate frosting, or a mini chocolate chip, or a little sprinkle like I’ve used. A sprinkle is really the perfect size if you have them.

Once the beak stays put you can flip them over and draw on some little yellow feet. If you have red frosting too (usually comes in a set with the tube of yellow) you can add a little gobble, gobble (It’s called a caruncle).

And there you go, cute as can be!

These make really cute place card holders too, for either a kid or adult table!
How cute is this little turkey family?

Stick one on each plate and everyone will say “Awwwwwwe….” If you have kids old enough to handle making them, it’s a fun project for them to be in charge of.

They’re also darling combined with pilgrim hats.

Those are just marshmallows dipped in chocolate and placed on a fudge stripe cookie. Use yellow frosting to make the buckle.

From: Our Best Bites

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Thanksgiving Sugar Cone Cornucopias

This was the best how-to that I found to shape the cones:

Take a couple of paper towels, fold them up into a square, wet them, and then ring out most of the water. You want them to be damp, but not dripping. Place your wet paper towels on a microwave-safe plate, then place the bottom half of the ice cream cones on the paper towels and cover them up. Two at a time worked the best because you only have a little bit of time to work with them after they come out of the microwave.

Microwave the cones for around 30 seconds depending on the strength of your microwave. You want the ends of the cones to be soft enough to mold without burning the part that isn’t in the paper towel. You also need to re-wet the paper towel after two 30 seconds runs in the microwave.

Remove the plate from the microwave and pull back the paper towel carefully. They will be hot! Pick up your cones, and working quickly bend the end of the cone using your hands, the countertop, or even a clean pencil. You will have to hold the ends in place for a few seconds until they cool enough to keep their shape.

Careful: Cones can be really hot!

From: Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM!

After you finish forming all your cones, melt a little bit of chocolate in a coffee cup or small bowl in the microwave.

Then dip just the very end of the cone in the chocolate…

…and place your dipped cone in a small plate of chocolate sprinkles, fall-colored sprinkles, nuts, or any tiny candies you like.

From: Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM!

The possibilities are endless as to what you can put in these cornucopias.

Here are some suggestions:
Bite-size candies such as Runts, Skittles, M&M’s, Candy Corn or Harvest Mix,
All Kinds of Cereal or Chex Mix
Teddy Grahams, Goldfish & Animal Crackers
Pretzels & Nuts
Whipped Topping
Dried Fruit
Anything that will fit in it can be used.
Let your imagination go wild and have fun!

Here are some images of the ones that I thought had some of the most creative contents.