Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day!

I hope you did something green today (and every day!). Ben and I made eco-friendly gloop to play with...as you can see from the picture above, he had a fab time. Want to know how to make your own eco-friendly gloop? Read on.

Eco Friendly Gloop

Ingredients:
Water
Cornstarch
Non toxic dye (recipe below)

Assembly:,
Mix equal parts water and cornstarch until smooth. Add dye, if desired.

Really, that's it. You can store in an airtight container and use a little water to refresh, or you can be like me and Ben and dump it all over the floor and have none left over!

If you're interested in making dye, you can use things like coffee (for brown), blueberries (for purple), etc. I chose to not make a dye because I couldn't guarantee that Ben would stay in the kitchen with the gloop, and I really didn't want stained carpet.

I got this recipe from my Moms in Madison Yahoo! group, which linked to the article above (click on Eco Friendly Gloop to read). There are some other fun "recipes" in that article that I'm looking forward to trying, too!

Crayons!

It's been a while since I've updated with a new recipe...and I have several to share (Mac & Cheese, Rosemary Lemon Chicken & Stuffed Green Peppers, to name a few), but I thought this one was fun, and I wanted to share. I made some crayons for Ben's birthday party favors - they turned out great & I wanted to show off what I did ;)

It's not really a recipe...and it's not hard...but it's cute, and with Easter coming up, it might be something you could put in an Easter basket! It's also a great idea to use if you have a ton of broken crayons sitting around!

Crayon Tarts

Ingredients:
Crayons

Really, that's it. Just make sure they don't have any wrappers on them, anymore & break them up so they fit into a muffin pan. (We found a cheap muffin tin at Marshall's to use for.only.crayons, but you could use any muffin tin you've got lying around...just use cupcake liners if you plan on reusing it for food.) If you hunt around, you can also find cool shaped muffin tins (or silicone ones). Ikea has a ton for $.99/each!

Assembly:
If the crayons are new (like they were in my case), tear off all the wrappers. This is easiest if you score the wrapper and peel it off.

Break the crayons so they fit into your chosen pan.

Pop in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes (about 5, give or take a few).

When melted through, remove from oven. If you want a swirly effect, take a toothpick and swirl through the melted wax before it cools.

Let cool in the tins, pop out, and package cutely.


You can personalize these crayons several ways - you can use cool shaped muffin pans to make fun shapes for holidays or special occasions (I know Michael's has Easter Egg silicone pans that would be super cute!). You can mix like colors (reds & purples, blues & greens, yellows & oranges), or mix them all up (like I did).

It really is a lot of fun to do (except for the peeling the wrappers part...that was not fun) & it's a cute way to repurpose crayons. Try it!