peskypippi.comBecause I have a lot to say…

Nana taught my ten-year-old daughter how to knit. It was the sweetest thing! They are now working on a scarf…long enough for a snowman.

While my daughter was knitting, I sidled up to her on the sofa and asked sweetly, “Can you teach me sometime?”

She said with a smile and without taking her eyes off her work, “You’re too stupid to learn to knit.”

Me: “You mean I’m too impatient to knit?” Surely, she must have mixed up her words!

She said with a bigger smile, “You’re too impatient AND too stupid.”

And we laughed. Hahahaha!

…And then I punched her in the face.

That daughter of mine. She was right. On both accounts.

Got road trips?

Here’s a nifty little idea for you non-crafter parents that you can create in, oh, about 8 minutes. You may call it a jar of rice with toys in it. I call it Pippi’s Traveling Treasure Trove that you shake and take with you in the car to entertain the kids.

What prompted this was:

1. My kids have an overload of miniature toys they don’t play with because the toys are hiding at the bottom of toy bins
2. My kids need something to do in our long (10 minute) car trips.
3. Reuse and recycle, baby!

Here’s all you need:

1. A big plastic container with a lid. Ours was a tub with peanut butter-filled pretzels.
2. A crapload of miniature toys.
3. A 5 lb. bag of rice.
4. Mix together.
5. Screw lid on tightly.
6. Presto! Now you can bring Pippi’s Traveling Treasure Trove virtually anywhere! And your kids can shake it and search for all the hidden treasures. What’s old is new again. And maybe you’ll have some quiet while driving.

And just think. When you’re done with this clever toy, you’ll have rice for dinner.

Nothing says fun like sock puppets. And we sure have a lot of lonely socks around here. I wrote about my drawer of unmatched socks here.

Thanks to a rainy day, that drawer has been emptied. With a hot glue gun, buttons, googly eyes, felt, pipe cleaners, and a teensy bit of imagination…pow! Our rainy day was transformed into sock puppet mania!