Exploding Chocolate

No, that title is not to introduce a story about anything relating to a potty at the casa. I know, shocking. After a certain age, you just should not share other people's defecation stories.  This story is about Crafty Gal, who tried to incorporate Cooking Gal into the mix. Oy-vey... it was interesting to say the least.
Cooking-Crafty Gal spied some dee-licious chocolate pudding cups on the itnernets. She decided to make them with her boys as part of their summer to-do list. (more on that later.) Well... I refuse to even link the site. Poor Bakerella should never know her brilliant idea was so poorly executed. Here we go...

First you start with some chocolate chips, and some small inflated balloons. I was rebuked for whining about my cheeks hurting by the two older boys. Hadji said, "Mom, you have to use your chest, not your cheeks to get your power." Wow. Just, wow.

Next, you make these cute little spots of chocolate on a pan. These will get smooshed flat (professional term there folks, e-mail me if you need further explanation) and those become the cup base.

Then you proceed to dip a small balloon into the melted chocolate and place it on the little chocolate circles. Now, this is where Crafty-Cooking Gal, did not implore her "I barely passed biology and only did so because my field hockey coach was my teacher." knowledge and think...
Hot chocolate + balloon = exploding chocolate. And  I do mean, exploding. It was everywhere. My pink shirt, the cupboards, even the stove... and people (like you Heather.) know I like my stove clean. Very clean. Like, I take the knobs off and clean it with a Q-tip clean. It was choice time for this mama. Freak out and get mad whilst the three wild boys watched, or embrace the exploding chocolate. We embraced. I busted out laughing, and so did they.

After letting the chocolate cool off for 15 minutes we tried again. We got more exploding chocolate. Since we were already covered in chocolate we repeated this cycle until Micah got home from work. We kept at this until finally... an HOUR later, we had chocolate that was still melted and yet, cool enough to dip. At this point Hadji was not thrilled with the idea and doubted my 34th promise of "it will work this time, I just know it!" 

So, after we finally got some dipped, (which Alden was too scared to even attempt) we had them ready to cool. Then pop the balloons, and voila... one messy kitchen and chocolate hair treatment later, you have Chocolate Pudding cups!

 THE Chocolate Pudding Cup. Loved by one and all.

Beach trip via iphone...

We got to go to my sister's beach house a couple weeks ago. It was awesome. She has it set up perfectly. She is also a doctor. And beautiful. I would like to know, did I miss that part of the family gene pool or something? If she wasn't my own flesh and blood, I'd smack her. Just kidding. I have smacked her. A lot. We were quite "feisty" girls growing up, and I have the scars to prove it. (she was a scratcher, I was a puncher. I think the worst fight we ever got in was three weeks before I went to Bible college. Jesus loves you, oh, and yes, those are my teeth  marks on your leg...) anyway... back to the beach.
Here are some pictures. They were taken with... wait for it... MY iPHONE. Oh yes, after all these years of you three people who read this blog, listening to me belly ache and complain, my Micah surprised me with an iPhone last month. Let's just say, there are close to 600 photos on it already.. time to figure out how to get them off and onto the computer I guess. I have what is now called " iPhone newbie over photo-itis." It is real, and I have it. Stop! I cry... let me get a picture of that rock, we do not want to forget that it was here. Or  "ok, everyone let me get your picture eating a circus peanut. Regular camera and hipstamatic too!"  I am a loser. I don't care. I have photos. On my phone.

Here they are:

 ← We ventured out early, which means by the time we hit the highway, approximately 5 minutes from our home, I was asleep. Open eyelids were later sponsored by pepsi max.

 Here is Alden. → He decided to draw on himself midway through the trip. When asked why, he looked at me like I was stupid and replied, "Ma, I am Tony Stark, these is my lasers." Duh...

We have a plethora of sunset and cool stormy cloud shots.

It was our anniversary while we were gone. I celebrated by showcasing via social media my former love for puffy sleeves and big hair. Oh, and untweezed eyebrows. 

Poolside popsicles and sidewalk chalk...

We rented a boat and went across the bay to an island. An amazing, tropical, crystal clear water and white sand beach with ginormous seashells island. It was SO much fun. Best idea ever. (micah's... of course.)

More shots. I will stop captioning them all. I also have post traumatic witty-caption stress syndrome.

the end.

Crafty gal... sorta.

Here is the latest in the crafty gal series. For the record, my definition of a being a crafty gal is this:

crafty gal  (kr-af-tee gal) n. one who spies cute ideas on the WWW and adapts them to her own level of lazy crafting. (time, children, and the level of dust on household surfaces makes the lazy level a variable, not a constant.)
v. one who crafts, sort of. "I can't wash the dishes, I am crafty girling it."

So here is the latest project. I should dig through my files and find the original source so I can link it. But then the link turns purple, and we all know how I feel about purple. No, really, I will try and go find it and add it in. Suffice to say this is NOT my idea. I crafty gal copycatted it. Polaroid Photo Magnets. Its not a very catchy name, but there it is.
You will need:

 That includes: scissors, glue gun, white paint, tray, and brush. white sharpie, paper glaze, magnets, chipboard, photos printed to approximately 1¼ x 1¼. (you can add in a polaroid frame in photoshop or just print with a enough border to trim them to look that way. I used a polaroid overlay thingy.)

Close ups of the Supplies, just in case my resize to appease blogger is not large enough. You will also note, I added in more supplies later, and didn't use some of these. That is because by george, if I was going to make a craft and actually take photos of the supplies, they were going on the blog. I will note the ones added and used as we go along.

Steps:
Trim photos, and adhere to chipboard. Cut them out to the exact size of your photo. You may need an exacto knife here.

Next, you will need to decide... does the brown edge bother me enough to paint it or not? I had out the sharpie, and the white paint. after trying both, I went with the paint.

Here is where we did some supply substituting. I read that sometimes paper glaze can warp photos, mess with the ink, etc. I was going to throw caution to the wind, when that voice from home economics in the 8th grade saying, "You really should follow a pattern" and the memory of a skirt I made that became a lovely bag came to mind. (the skirt/bag?  i made it sans pattern, and sewed the hem shut by mistake.) So, I decided to try packing tape.

It worked perfectly. You just trim it with sharp scissors or an exacto.

When all that is dry, taped, and done, you add the magnets. More supply omission. I forgot that my magnet was the already sticky kind, so no need for the glue gun. Maybe I was just trying to validate myself to the crafting community by showing that I do, in fact, own a glue gun.

Finally the finished product. I hastily photographed them, and the photos are terrible. Lazy crafty jumped in and didn't bother with her flash bouncer thingy, so the ISO is cranked up which = grainy photos.

I am looking forward to making some from our beach trip. What beach trip? you ask... well, stay tuned. I will bore you with that soon enough. If you have made it this far, go have a cookie. Amen.