Make It Monday: Popcorn Cherry Blossoms

One of the things I love about spring is seeing the trees start to bud. That new life and splash of green and is refreshing after the gloom of winter. My favorites though are the flowering trees. The pinks, the purples, the whites - all so pretty. We used to have a beautiful flowering tree in the front of our house. Pretty, that is, as long as the flowers were still on the trees. Once they started falling - and got glued to the exterior of our van - it wasn't so pretty anymore.  Even after we'd clean off the dead flowers, there would still be gunky residue left on the van. Yuck. 

Leighton cut down the tree and filled the space with concrete to expand our driveway. While I don't miss the dried flower gunk or having to walk through the mud to get from the van into the house, I do miss the pretty flowers.

Not to worry, we now have our very own cherry blossoms . . . inside the house.

To make the tree trunks, we traced each child's hand and arm.

Then, they colored them.

You'll need popcorn and pink/red/purple JELL-O for the blossoms.

Pour both the popcorn and the JELL-O powder into a bag.

Make sure the bag has no holes. One way to check is to pour them in and shake. If the powder spills out all over the table, there is a hole. 

Ask me how I know.

Once you pour the popcorn and powder into a new bag - one with no holes - shake, shake, shake it up!

Squeeze dots of glue all around the tree and place popcorn in each one.

Our blossoms were more purple-y than the pink I had originally envisioned. That's what I get for letting Jake, Mr. I-love-everything-cherry, choose the JELL-O. The color did change to pink once they touched the glue though. Also, I sprayed them with hair spray to ensure that the powder stuck and to turn them pinker.

I could have spritzed them with water to bring out the pink, but I remembered what would happen!

Of course, there was plenty of popcorn eating as well. And messy, sticky fingers. And dirty faces. And a powdery table. All the very best things about crafting.

Jake liked the popcorn so much that he asked if we could make it for Tasty Tuesday. It's no wonder he liked it; it tasted just like the fruit-flavored pancake syrup we made.

Aren't they pretty! There's really no wrong way to place the blossoms. The ones off the tree look like flowers that the wind blew away. (Good thing there's no van next to it!)

We got 3 beautiful cherry blossom trees (without the hassle of the clean-up!) and a tasty snack to boot? Sounds like a great springtime craft to me!


Hope you have fun making your own flowering trees!

Tasty Tuesday: Jello Eggs

When we colored Easter eggs on Monday, I mentioned how we were given a couple gifts. Our second one was a JELL-O egg mold. How cool! I had never seen one of these before. Apparently, I live a sheltered life. 

On to the eggs!

Blast the mold with non-stick cooking spray. Snap the mold closed.

Add 1 (3oz) package of jello to 3/4 cup boiling water. Spill some of the powder because obviously you have too much.

Stir until completely dissolved.

Repeat.

Pour the liquid into the spouts at the top of the mold.

If your mold is not completely closed, the liquid will pour out the side.

Pour the liquid jello back into the measuring cup.

Repeat steps 1 and 5, paying close attention to snapping the mold completely closed. Place in the refrigerator to set.

We tried 2 solid eggs of each color and 2 mixed eggs. Apparently, the mold popped opened again before adding the red.

Jiggly, jello-y eggs

I let the jello set for an hour and a half before adding the second color to the 2 mixed eggs. The extra red had hardened on the kitchen counter. I popped it in the microwave before pouring it into the two remaining molds. The one spilled right out the back. The other worked just fine. That is if you only wanted half an egg. The halves did not fuse together like I had hoped. That's ok. Half an egg was perfect for Zachary.

He put in his thumb and pulled out . . . an Easter egg.

This is his first experience with jello. Just a guess, but lime not might be his favorite.

These make great sensory objects for the kids. They had fun holding, squishing, wiggling and eating them. And of course, they thought it was hilarious that there was jello all over the plate. How does that saying go, "One man's spilled jello is another man's treasure"?