Glass Painting Sun Catchers

At a recent visit to our library they were running a craft session for the children to do some glass painting. My youngest wasn't going to miss such an opportunity. She designed some lovely pieces of glass which can be used as sun catchers. She painted a space theme, showing planets with stars in the background.

These were fairly easy to make. She painted onto the glass with glass paints. She then allowed the paint to dry. Once dry we then had to place these into a cold oven and turn oven up and leave for 20-30 minutes and turn oven off. Leave in the oven until they have cooled down. This is toprevent the glass from smashing in different temperatures.

These already had a hook glued onto the glass so that they can be hung on a window. She loves her new handmade decorations.

Dinosaur Crafts

The last few weeks have had my daughter interested in dinosaurs and making dinosaur artwork. Our local museum currently has a dinosaur exhibition which I have visited a few times with my children. So when dinosaur crafts were offered my 8 year old loved joining in and made a dinosaur model and drew her own design of dinosaur too!

Below are some photos of the dinosaurs currently on display in our local museum.

The photo below is my daughter making the dinosaur frame out of pipe cleaners, then she added the mouldable dough to the pipe cleaners to make the body of the dinosaur.

The photo below shows the completed dinosaur she designed, looks like it is hungry for those cookies!

The photograph below shows her drawing her own imaginary design of dinosaur, she never did come up with a name for it though!

Home Education Academy of the Arts

My girls have just started joining in with a new project launched on Facebook this month for Homeschooled children. This is a project which aims to to run weekly theme-based arts and craft challenges for children to participate in and share their work for all to see. Here is the website showcasing the children's work. https://homeschoolacademyofthearts.wordpress.com/

Every Friday a poll will be on the Facebook page, for members to choose which theme they would like to do on the following week. The poll will close on a Friday evening and the votes will be counted. Whichever theme wins, is the theme that will be running as the challenge for the following week. The children have until the following Friday to submit their work.

I am excited for the girls to join in with something arty/crafty and this is good because it gives them something to focus on which also has deadlines. So far they have managed to complete the first 2 tasks of providing artwork.

The theme for the 1st week was 'Autumn' so my daughters' both did some watercolour painting with an Autumn theme. Below are their pieces of work. The first photo is a painting of Autumn leaves designed by my 8 year old daughter. The photo below that is an Autumn tree theme designed by my 13 year old daughter.

The theme for the 2nd week was 'Wildlife' and again they both did some watercolour painting for this task. Below are there entries for this task. The first photo is of a fox designed by my 8 year old daughter, the second photo is of a bird designed by my 13 year old daughter.

Next week's theme is to be 'Under the Sea' so I can't wait to see what designs my girls will come up with for that one insha'Allah.

Sweet Mince Cinnamon Rolls

I recently saw a recipe for apple cinnamon rolls using bread and thought that I could actually follow a similar recipe and make use of the sweet mince I had bought at reduced price. I tried it once and my children devoured them immediately and asked for more! So I now have another quick and easy recipe to add to my list. I tried to look for a recipe but couldn't find any, so I have made a new name for this recipe, 'Sweet Mince Cinnamon Rolls'. Here is how I made them:

Ingredients:

• Sliced bread
• Sweet Mince (Vegetarian)
• Melted butter
• Sugar
• Cinnamon
• Optional: Icing Sugar for decoration

Step 1: Preheat oven to 170 degrees
Step 2: Melt some butter and place in a bowl or plate to enable you to dip the roll of bread in.
Step 3: Remove the crusts from the slice of bread
Step 4: Using a Rolling Pin roll out the slice of bread.
Step 5: Place a tablespoon of sweet mince into the middle of the slice.
Step 6: Roll the bread up
Step 7: Place the rolled up bread into the melted butter.
Step 8: Roll the bread onto a plate which has the sugar and cinnamon on.

Step 9: Place the rolls onto a non-stick baking tray (I used oven sheet) and place into the pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown.
Step 10: Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.
Step 11: With a sieve sprinkle some icing sugar over the top
Step 12: Serve either warm or cold.

If you want some information regarding what Sweet Mince is here is a wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincemeat

Alice in Wonderland Art

My 8 year old recently produced a lovely piece of work that she entered into a local art competition. The theme was Alice in Wonderland, celebrating the 150 years of the book. Both my daughter's entered but unfortunately didn't win but nevertheless they enjoyed the challenge.

Photos of her doing her design on the canvas.

Photograph below of her big sister's Alice in Wonderland Art Piece. My 13 year old daughter has already written a blog piece about this on her blog. alice-in-wonderland-crafts

Photograph below of my 8 year old daughter in the gallery where her artwork was displayed.

Eid Cookies - Sheep

We had a great time making the Eid cookies last week so decided to make some more but this time try a different design. We decided on making Sheep Cookies which is linked with Eid.

I used the same cookie recipe and icing as I did with the other cookies I posted about yesterday. http://www.karimascrafts.com/2015/09/henna-style-decorated-cookies-for-eid.html

Instructions:

Step 1: Using a sheep cookie cutter I cut out the shapes from the cookie dough (see separate recipe)
Step 2: Bake and allow to cool down.
Step 3: Cover the sheep with one thin layer of white icing and allow to dry (about an hour)
Step 4: Using thick white incing decorate the sheep with swirls to look like wool.
Step 5: Add eyes and optional add a colour for the legs. I used cake decoration balls for the eyes and gold edible icing.

We had some spare cookie dough and icing leftover so we decided to make a couple of Muslima/Hijabi cookies too! Using a gingerbread cookie cutter I cut out the dough and then pressed the legs together to make it look like a skirt. Then decorated with the icing. I used a food pen to draw the face.

The link below shows the sugar cookie recipe I used.
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/05/27/soft-cut-out-sugar-cookies/

Henna Style Decorated Cookies for Eid

It will be Eid in a few days and my girls have been busy decorating some cookies that they can gift to friends.  We followed a sugar cookies recipe, apparently these are best for decorating on.

Then I also made my own icing following instructions I found online which is meant to be good for decorating with. I chose a recipe using egg whites.

I will post the link to the cookie recipe at the bottom of the post.

Instructions

Step 1: We baked the cookies and allowed them to cool down before decorating.

Step 2: Prepare the icing and divide into separate bowls and add food colouring.

Step 3: Apply a bottom layer of icing onto the cookies and allow to harden, took over an hour for ours.

Step 4: Then apply a design with a contrasting colour onto the cookies.

Allow to dry and then they are ready to eat or gift.


The photo below shows the cookies that my 13 year old daughter designed.

The photo below shows the cookies that my 8 year old daughter designed.

The link for the cookie recipe I followed is: http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/05/27/soft-cut-out-sugar-cookies/