Play Dough Valentines (And because it’s me, it also ends up being about food at the end.)

On Tuesday I learned that Joanna needed to have 13 Valentines for her preschool friends by Thursday.  My plan was just to let her pick out a package at the grocery store (I know, so personal), but on Wednesday I came across I plan I liked better.  I saw a post on Money Saving Mom about making play dough for Valentine gifts.  So even though it was the day before and I was at home by myself with four children, I decided it would be fun.  :)

Upon assembling the ingredients, however, I discovered we were 1/4 cup of salt short.  Bummer!  I sure wasn’t leaving the house for a quarter cup of salt.  So I just waited until Matt was home (he stopped at the store for salt) to make the dough.  Sadly I didn’t take any pictures of the process.  Oh well.  We were aiming for red play dough but ended up with pink.  Okay with us!  I think we had trouble getting the color to stick because of our unbleached all purpose flour. 

The girls had fun dumping ingredients into the pot, and I was very glad Matt was home since the stirring was hard!  I wish I had read the comments on the post before starting because I would have done it a different way.  Firstly, I would have used some red Kool-Aid to color the dough instead of food coloring.  Our stuff didn’t smell very good.  And at least one person commented that they make the play dough in the stand mixer, using boiling water – genius!  If we do this again, I’m definitely trying that.

Since this was a “use what you have” kind of project (except for the little bit of salt of course), I just wrapped the play dough in fold over sandwich bags and tied them up.  If I’d been out purchasing stuff I might have gotten little ziplocks.  As much as I don’t love using plastic bags, the ziplocks would have been more practical in actually storing the play dough, verses either having to tie these back up or hunt for another container once the kids get home.

But to make the little bags prettier (and because I’ve just begun experimenting with my sewing machine), I made little pouches for them.

And I made little tags to tuck inside.

One recipe was a perfect amount of dough for 13 gifts, I think.

I had to take a picture of my sweet girl Thursday morning before school.  We were running late, or I’d have taken more (of Sister, too!)  They were both wearing red shirts with denim on the bottom.  Very cute!

Love the big bow with the ponytail.  She’s just so grown-up!

And just randomly because I thought it looked pretty, here’s her lunch from Thursday.  :)

I’ve needed to be more creative lately with regards to Joanna’s lunch.  She won’t eat PB&J (we can’t send it anyway), and she doesn’t like sandwiches much at all.  She ate every bit of this lunch but assured me she wasn’t still hungry.  Yay!  Other lunches I’ve sent her lately that are sort of unusual are:
-Oatmeal in the thermos.  I used my homemade “instant” variety, put 1/2 cup dry in the thermos, added boiling water, mixed it up, added a spoonful of applesauce, then closed the lid.  It’s a little congealed by lunch, but still warm and very yummy!  (I experimented one day before I sent it.)
-Hummus with homemade crackers and carrot sticks
-Egg salad

I’m also planning to try soup in the thermos, tuna salad, and chicken salad.  Maybe some pasta something too.  And there may be a few more things I’m forgetting.  I’m writing them down as they occur to me.  :)

Now I just have to figure out what to do with Natalie.  She likes her sandwiches that I send her just fine… at home!  At school, she rather covetous I think.  She almost always mooches pizza, which I don’t mind, especially since her teachers make her eat most or all of her meal first.  The other day her teachers told me that when they passed out lunches around the table, Natalie’s face just fell and she got her grumpy look on – poor Natalie!  I think she would like having oatmeal for lunch.  She loves her “oy oy.”  We only  have one thermos though, so they’ll have to trade off.  :)