Kids were pretty disappointed that the afternoon at the swing park was cancelled but we decided to do some crafts. We settled, after a tough debate, on modelling. So I hunted online looking for recipes for home-made modelling clay. There were so many recipes with so many different ingredients so I gave up & made it up as I went along, a bit of this & a bit of that. So I mucked around a bit until I got the perfect texture as follows:
1 cup of boiling water + 1 cup of salt + 1 1/3 cup of flour
Kneaded it for about 5 minutes until it all gathered up into a dough. Not too dry, not too sticky. Perfect. It moulded really well, held together & didn't get all over the place while we were using it.
So divided it amongst four of us & had to decide what each of us were going to make. My plan was for a heart shaped paperweight (with a rather fabulous moustache my darling son helped me make), the 10yr olds plan was for a wee heart shaped figurine type thing, 8yr old had people & animal figures in mind (namely a man with a hat, a goat & a chicken) & the 3yr old wanted a smile for his Daddy. Please excuse our makeshift mess mats, really must invest in some instead of looking like tramps on crafty days...
Unfortunately, after baking in the oven (140C for about an hour/hour & a half), it appears our clay models have risen. We used plain flour so I assumed this wouldn't happen. Cue a rather unhappy 10yr old girl on the brink of tears. We chopped the bottom of the base slightly to even it out but unfortunately it's a bit sticky in the middle so here's hoping that overnight it'll harden. So if anyone decides to use the recipe I used, don't. I'm clearly shit at making up my own crafting products so do yourself a favour & find a recipe from someone who actually has a clue as to what they're on about.
On the whole, it was a relatively peaceful day. Well, apart from a massive hormonal pre-teen tantrum over what I'm still not entirely sure. Apparently I was wrong about something & I appear to be the worst sister in the world worthy of some seriously bad-ass insults. Classics such as "Well you're a total liar then because it was clearly not like 10 minutes ago" (Fair enough about half an hour then) "Oh well it's like another 20 minutes, how stupid are you?" & (after being told that she was in the wrong for what she did) "Well you're just ugly." *minds blown*. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Just sayin'! Another day, another drama. Lemme tell you, if that's what a pre-teen girl is like, I'm glad I have boys!
- M
Oh & I must share a funny story before I go. Boys both fell asleep in our bed (we part-time cosleep with the youngest) as 3yr old wanted a cuddle as I was nursing the baby to sleep & conked out. Decided I would move the 3yr old later on once I was heading up to bed after doing the shop (online of course, I'm not THAT negligent) & left them sleeping on opposite sides of the bed.
About half an hour later, there's sobbing & hollering from the baby. I run upstairs, exasperated by the interruption from the intensely pleasurable meal planning, to find the 3yr old sound asleep with the baby half asleep attempting to latch on to his brother's nose & becoming pretty pissed off that it wasn't quite what he was looking for. Brilliant.
Yeah, that's one reason I don't do home made clay etc!
ReplyDeleteLove the baby trying to suckle on his brother. When my son was a baby he used to try latch onto my Mum's bare skin, he couldn't quite understand why she didn't do milk!