Recycled Bows

The kids are going to a birthday party later today.  I remembered some tutorials I saw awhile ago for making holiday bows from magazine pages.  I decided that I would make a bow for the birthday present.   I basically followed this tutorial here at New Green Mama.  I made this bow from a red plastic bag. I must say that plastic might not be the best material for bow-making since it is not very stiff.  Still, I thought it turned out okay.




I didn’t have any magazines on hand but I did happen to have a complimentary copy of Jakarta Expat which is a newspaper but printed on glossy paper like a magazine.  Here are a few bows I made from the newspaper.



Making the bows is a lot of fun!  If you have some old magazines lying around, you might try making some fun bows. There are lots of examples on the internet of some beautiful bows made from magazine pages.

Plastic Bottle Light Source

A friend of mine posted this video on Facebook.  I thought it was a fantastic resuse for plastic soda bottles.  Necessity is the mother of invention!

I was reading more about these soda bottle lights.  Apparently each one is equivalent to a 55 or 60W light bulb.  They are also good for up to five years!

Castle

My oldest loves playing battle with his Lego “dudes” and army men.  He also likes knights and castles so he asked if we could make a castle.  Mommy found a fun website to make a castle from cereal boxes, toilet paper rolls, and paper.  We printed the parts of the castle on scrap paper, the kids colored them, and then we pasted the paper onto the cereal boxes and cut out the pieces.  I did most of the assembling since it was difficult for the kids to fold the cardboard and to glue the parts in place. Here is the link to the website to make the castle.


The finished castle.



Ready to do battle. 



My son decided he needed another castle for the “enemy” troops so we made one out of a juice box container. He also remembered his other box creations and got them out too to use in the battle.





I think DH is planning on getting my son a Lego Castle for Christmas, but in the meantime, he certainly is having plenty of fun with his cardboard box creations.

Chocolate Strawberry Dessert

I bought some strawberries the other day, but the kids seem to have decided that they don’t like the local strawberries.  I think they are not as sweet as the ones they were used to back in the U.S.  Maybe I just don’t know where to get good strawberries, but all the ones I have bought so far do seem to be on the tart side.
So, since I had a couple of containers of strawberries, and no one wanted to eat them, I decided to make a dessert.  I looked at several different recipes on the internet and found one that was delicious!  We all liked it a lot.  Unfortunately I can’t find the website where I originally found the recipe. 
Here is the recipe I jotted down:
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips ( I just used the local brand of chocolate chips I found at Lotte Mart here in Jakarta…I don’t even know what kind of chocolate chips they are)
2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3 Tbsp. water
1 8 oz. package cream cheese (I used the Yummy brand that comes in a little tub…it’s roughly the equivalent of a block of cream cheese)
2 pt. strawberries
3 Tbs. strawberry jelly + 2 Tsp water
Place all the ingredients except for the strawberries and the jelly in a pan and stir over medium to low heat until everything is melted.  The filling should be nice and creamy.  Pour into a cooled pie crust.   Wash and remove the strawberry stems.  Put the strawberries on top of the filling and drizzle with strawberry jelly mixture.  Chill the dessert for 2 hours until the filling has set.
I used a ready made chocolate pie crust that a friend had given me awhile back.  I think this dessert would go really well in an Oreo cookie  pie crust.
Oreo Crust
Roughly 20 Oreo cookies with the cream removed
3 Tbsp melted butter
Crush the cookies inside a plastic bag with a rolling pin or hammer.  It’s easier to smash them in small batches.  Mix with melted butter.  Press into pie plate or pan and bake at 350F for 15 minutes. 

I actually didn’t have any strawberry jelly…just jam which is why the the filling looks a little lumpy between the strawberries.  It still tasted good.  The kids devoured it…strawberries and all!