Homeschool Helper

Recover Cedar Hope Chest

amy — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:54:11 +0000

This is the hope chest that I received for my 16th birthday. I’m afraid the 1980’s blue shows my age. The cover on it was stained and the fabric was getting very thin. After looking at how it was put together, we decided we could recover it.
Here’s how we did it.

On the inside of the lid, unscrew the screws that hold the top seat part onto the chest.

Remove the staples that hold the fabric onto the wood. There was also some sort of adhesive used, so we had to pull the fabric off. At this point, examine the old cover carefully to see how it is folded and stapled onto the wood.

Pin the old cover onto the new fabric with both right sides facing down. Make sure you smooth it to get all of the wrinkles out. I got this fabric in the decorator’s fabric section during a sale at our local fabric store.

Cut out the new fabric, using the old cover as a pattern.

Place the foam and board from chest onto the fabric.

Staple the fabric onto the board. This is the tricky part. It is easier if you can remember how the old cover was folded and stapled! We had to keep looking at the old cover to figure this out.

Be sure you have the fabric stretched evenly as you staple.

Once we had it all stapled, we turned it over to make sure it looked right, then stapled even more. Since we weren’t using any adhesive, we used a lot of staples.

Then we used the hammer to make sure all of the staples were flush.

Screw the top back onto the chest.

Here’s the finished hope chest. From “Hunny, would you please help me.” to “Thank you!”, it only took an hour and a half.

Retro Santa Tree Decoration

amy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:21:45 +0000

Last weekend, all of the women in my family met up at my mom’s house for a craft day.
Here’s what our four generations of girls created together.

Here’s how we made it.
Supplies:
red crepe paper
white crepe paper
fine glitter
thin wire
wire cutters
narrow silver ribbon
glue – we used a glue gun
double sided tape or glue stick
santa scrapbooking paper
coordinating scrapbooking paper – we actually used old sheet music and stamped it
circular punch – 1 3/8″
slightly larger scalloped edge punch – 1 3/4″
Instructions:
Cut the red crepe paper into 2 3/4″ x 17″ strips
Cut the white crepe paper into 3 1/2″ x 17″ strips

Put the red crepe paper on top of the white crepe paper, centering it. Then fan fold about 1/2″ folds. (We had three different people folding, so I’m sure our folds weren’t all exactly 1/2″ and it didn’t seem to matter.)

Cut a small piece of wire, about 6″ and wrap it around the folded crepe paper, twist it and cut off the extra wire.

Put glue or tape on sides, then fan out to form a circle.

Set that aside and cut out santa faces using the circle punch.

Then glitter the circles. We used watered down glue put on with a paintbrush, then sprinkled the glitter over.

Cut the scalloped circles out of your coordinating paper.

Glue the santa onto the scalloped circle.

Hot glue the scalloped circle onto the crepe paper fans. This took two people. One of us held the fan in the desired shape while another glued on the santa.

Hot glue a 6″ silver ribbon hanger onto the back.

That’s it. We made 10 in around an hour. We plan on using them for gift decorations and tree ornaments.

Homemade Mini Frozen Pizzas

amy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:17:05 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I doubled the crust recipe when making our traditional Sunday night pizza. I wanted to see if we could make mini pizzas and freeze them. We finally tried them today for lunch, and they were quite good!

Homemade Pizza Dough
2 Tablespoons yeast
2 Cups warm water
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 teaspoon salt
5 1/2 to 6 cups flour
3 cloves crushed garlic
Dissolve yeast in water and add sugar. Wait a few minutes. Add oil, salt and garlic. Add in 3 c ups of flour, mix. Add remaining flour and mix with dough hook or by hand. Knead until smooth. Allow to rise in the bowl. Punch down. Let rise again. Put on baking stones or sheets. Let rise slightly and top. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes.
This makes enough for 2 pizzas – some to eat and some to freeze.
I made this recipe like normal. I divided half of the dough into four mini pizzas.

I topped it with our homemade pizza sauce, some pepperoni and cheese.

I put them into the freezer overnight. The next day, I took them off the baking sheet and into a freezer ziploc bag.
I baked them at 450 for 15-20 minutes.

Homemade Halloween – Wizard of Oz

amy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:10:08 +0000

We like to have themes for Halloween at our house. In past years, we have done Veggie Tales and Peter Pan. This year we decided to do the Wizard of Oz.
Dorothy
I used McCalls pattern 4948 to make Dorothy’s costume. For the shoes, I spray painted some old shoes red and then sprayed a coat of glitter paint over the red. We found a basket purse at a garage sale to carry Toto in.

Glinda
We got two dresses at the thrift store for Glinda’s costume. They were both similar in color, but neither one was quite right. One was straight with lace over it and the other one had a full skirt, but was plain. My mother was visiting us, and she combined the two dresses to create one Glinda costume. We made the crown out of poster board.

Tin Man
We got some grey pants and a hooded sweatshirt at the thrift store for the tin man. We sprayed on some metallic fabric paint. We bought an oil funnel and painted it silver. I sewed it onto the hood of the sweatshirt with yarn, leaving enough yarn to tie it under the neck for added security. The funnel already had a hole in one side, we had to drill a hole in the other side in order to sew it onto the hood. We cut an ax out of cardboard and painted it.

Cowardly Lion
To create the cowardly lion, I traced around a hooded sweatshirt for a pattern for the hood. I cut it out of some tan fabric I already had. After sewing the right sides together and turning, I sewed some brown bias tape onto the bottom to encase the raw edges, leaving enough to tie the hood under the neck. Then, I looped some brown yarn around my fingers to use for the mane. I had to do the mane in small sections. I took the looped yarn and sewed the center to the edge of the hood. To make the ears, I cut out rounded triangles (2 for each ear), sewed them right sides together, leaving the bottom open for turning. I cut out of brown felt slightly smaller rounded triangles to glue to the inside of the ears. Then, I cut holes in the hood where I wanted the ears and sewed them in.

To make the tail, I cut 2 1/2″ x 24″ rectangle out of the same fabric. I sewed it up lengthwise, right sides together and turned. I used the same looping method to create the end of the tail.

The lion will also wear a tan shirt and tan pants.

How to Design a Lapbook

amy — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:42:04 +0000

I have had several people ask me lately for help in designing a lapbook. So, I thought I’d share with you how I go about designing lapbooks. I just made an Amelia Earhart Lapbook, so I will use that as an example.

After choosing the subject, I check out several kids books from the library and read them.

As I am reading, I make a list of things I would like my kids to learn about the subject.
Here’s my list for Amelia Earhart:
Family Tree
Birth Details
What was she like growing up?
Timeline
List some Jobs Amelia had
First Atlantic Flight
First Solo Atlantic Flight
Writing Career
The Ninety-Nines
Flight around the World

Then I just incorporate each of these ideas into a mini book.
I use these templates and add text and pictures to them. You can right click on any of my templates and copy them to your clipboard. I just ask that you only use these for personal use.

I hope this helps you! Please consider submitting your lapbook to share with others at Homeschool Helper.

Apple Pie Filling

amy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:45:47 +0000

We had a lot of cooking apples in our orchard this year, so I canned some apple pie filling. My brother-in-law loves apple pies, so this will make a nice Christmas gift for him. I used the recipe from the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning.

Homemade Pizza Sauce

amy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:24:02 +0000

We like to have homemade pizza at our house every Sunday night. So, we make use of some of the extra tomatoes in the summer time and cook up some homemade pizza sauce to freeze.

I use the squeezo to get the tomato juice, then cook it up and freeze it into ice cube trays. We use two cubes per pizza, but we don’t like a very saucy pizza.
Here’s the recipe if you want to make some.

Pizza Sauce
3 quarts tomato juice
bit of parsley
1/8 cup salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 cup clear jel – this is a thickening agent
1 medium onion (chopped in the food processor)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon paprika
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoon oregano
Put all ingredients in big pot. Boil until slightly thickened. Cool and freeze.

Our First Egg

amy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:04:22 +0000

Our chickens laid their first egg Saturday. We were so excited!
It was pretty small, but we didn’t mind.
We all wanted to give it a try, so we scrambled it and cooked it up. Then we divided the very small egg into five bite size portions Honestly, it just tasted like an egg to me, but there is something satisfying about producing your own food in your backyard!

Digging the Sweet Potatoes

amy — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:12:36 +0000

We dug up the sweet potatoes a couple of days ago. We like to get them out of the ground before it frosts because a frost will kill the vines. Most of the big potatoes are concentrated around where the sweet potato slips were planted, but we also found some smaller ones in other places where the vines had taken root.

After digging them up, they need to be cured in a warm place (80-85F) for a couple of weeks. Then, just store them in a cool, dark place until you are ready to eat them.
Don’t forget to save some for making slips again next year!

Saving Tomatoes from the Frost

amy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:53:38 +0000

You can have tomatoes in November and December. Just bring all of your green tomatoes inside before it frosts. Then store them in a cool, dark place (like your basement) and cover them with a layer of newspaper. Check them every few days to pick out the ones that are ripe and throw out any that have rotted.

They aren’t as good as vine ripened tomatoes, but better than store bought ones.