craft - little flower vase

These little bottles were a craft idea from the brilliant book Kid Made Modern by Todd Oldham. In addition to some great craft projects the book gives a little background on a handful of key modern designers, discussing how each of these designers changed the world through their designs. It is thought provoking and good creative fodder, and if nothing else it is fun even for the littlest of people to browse through the great photos.

This project was so simple, we (one grown up, one three year old, one five year old) were able to complete the entire project within the course of about 45 minutes.

Here is what you need:
a clean, empty glass bottle (we used empty herb bottles, but you could use a larger bottle)
masking tape
shoe polish
a rag (or paper towels) or two

Here is what you do:
Start tearing off small pieces of masking tape - smaller is better. Working from the top of the bottle, cover the entire bottle with little pieces of masking tape, overlapping the tape so no glass peeks out. (Do cover the mouth of the bottle, but don't let the tape go too far down the inside of mouth - you don't want the tape to get wet if you put water in the bottle for flowers.)

Once the bottle is completely covered with tape, use your fingers to smooth down any little edges of tape so the bottle is totally smooth. Get a little shoe polish (you can use any color - we used tan and cordovan) on a rag or paper towel, and gently apply it all over the bottle. Take a clean paper towel or another piece of rag, and wipe away any excess polish, then let bottle dry overnight.

You can put water in the bottle for flowers, but be careful not to get the tape wet if possible.

cook - tuna & pasta salad

This is our go-to summertime make-in-advance pasta salad recipe. It couldn't be easier to make, it's healthy, and the children like it! Like most of my favorite recipes, I don't really follow a recipe here, just a general guideline, and the salad is a little different every time we make it, depending on what sort of veggies we have in the fridge. Like today, for instance, we were out of celery, so there is none in the salad today, but when we serve it this evening we'll put it on a bed of romaine lettuce, so it will be even prettier on it's bright green bed.

The ingredients are, more or less:

8 oz of whole grain pasta, cooked to al dente, then rinsed with cool water and drained
1/4 cup mayonnaise or to taste
a couple spoonfuls sweet pickle relish
capers (totally optional, but we love capers)
finely chopped onion (we used red, but you could use any onion) to taste, for us about 1/2 cup
one or two stalks celery, chopped
1/2 cup or so of purple cabbage, shredded or chopped
one or two carrots, finely chopped or coarsely grated
sweet bell pepper, chopped
tomato, chopped


Toss all of this together, season with salt and pepper, cover and chill, or eat right away. We like to serve it on a bed of lettuce or baby greens of some sort. It keeps nicely in the fridge for about a day. This recipe serves four generously.