Diamond Dotz

This post contains affiliate links. 

One of the coolest things about being a craft blogger is that random craft supplies occasionally show up at my house unexpectedly. Such was the case with the 'Christmas Kitten Glow' Diamond Dotz kit. 

I wasn't crazy about the cat design (we're rabbit people), but I was really excited to try a larger Diamond Dotz kit. You may recall that I blogged about their starter kit back in February, after discovering Diamond Dotz at the Creativation show. It's a neat product and lots of fun. 

The kit came with the printed design, a stylus, a wax caddy, a tray, and twenty packages of Diamond Dotz, each labeled with a number. There were also zip-top baggies to hold any extra Dotz.

Creating the design is just a matter of looking at the key and putting the appropriate color of Diamond Dotz on the canvas. We worked one color at a time. The stylus works like a charm to pick up the Dotz. You simply touch it to the canvas and the strong adhesive holds it in place. So easy!

We set up the project on a card table in our family room. Whenever we had a few minutes, we'd add Dotz to the canvas. Almost everyone who visited our house over a 2-week span gave it a try. Boys and girls, kids and adults - the consensus was that Diamond Dotz is an addictive craft, fun, and so easy. 

  

Like I said, it took about two weeks of working on it a few minutes at a time before we completed the design. I popped it in a gold 8" x 10" frame for photos. 

Unfortunately, photos do not do it justice. The whole thing sparkles and shines from every angle. As you walk by it, hundreds of little points of light catch your eye. This was the best I could do to try to capture that in a photo.

So would I recommend Diamond Dotz? Absolutely! This is a great product for adults, but it is equally excellent for kids around 8 and up. It's easy and fun and the finished product looks amazing. Like I said, I don't love the cat design, but there are some other designs that I absolutely love. Check these out:

  

 

Aren't they gorgeous? I can't decide which one I like the best. I want them all. Happy Dotting!

Third Annual(ish) deRosier-Salomone Cookie Bake-off

A triple batch of cookie dough divided into eight equal portions can mean only one thing...

... the Third Annual(ish) deRosier-Salomone Cookie Bake-off! 

The Salomone family has grown and now includes Joe and his kids, Kai and Tragar. Steve joined as a contestant for the first time, bringing the total to eight. Nancy's mom, Sherry, joined as a judge. Once again, I served as Tim Gunn, mentor to the contestants. 

The eight contestants drew numbers to determine their baking order. Each would add up to 1/2 cup of mix-ins to their dough. There can be an advantage to going first, as it's possible that someone else might use up the ingredients later contestants were planning to incorporate. Fortunately, there were plenty of options for mix-ins. I like to include expected items, like chocolate chips or nuts, but I throw in plenty of non-traditional cookie ingredients. I did not expect anyone to use cheddar cheese popcorn or ground pepper in their cookies, but both were used!

It took a couple of hours, but finally all the cookies were ready.

Kai (age 16) was the first contestant. He made a simple cookie with Andes Mints, Rice Krispies and chopped pretzels. He topped each with a Whopper. (I was curious to see how a Whopper would behave in the oven. It turns out that they deflate and get a bit chewy.) Kai did not name his cookie.

Kai's brother, Tragar (age 12), went next. While Kai opted for simplicity, Tragar's philosophy was that if a few mix-ins are good, then a ton of mix-ins must be a lot better. He added kettle corn, wafer cookies, Andes Mints, fortune cookies, crushed candy canes, Tropical Punch Kool-Aid, and lemon juice to his cookies. He made a T of Hershey's on each cookie, then sprinkled lemon zest on top. He named his cookie "Don't Worry. It's Edible." 

Next was Julia (age 9). She has made a mint cookie every year and it's served her well, having won the very first contest. She named this year's cookie "Non-Winter Mint." It featured red and green M&Ms, Andes Mints, crushed candy cane, and a little bit of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid.

Joe (age 40-something) packed his cookies with Fritos, pretzels, M&Ms, peanut butter, and peanuts. He named his "Alava Nutter." Clever!

Trevor (age 10) was the one who went for the cheddar cheese popcorn. (!) He also added kettle corn, zebra popcorn, lemon juice and cinnamon. (Tim Gunn was apprehensive.) His cookie was named "Pucker Popcorn."

Marco (age 11) made "A Whopper of a Cookie." His cookies included Andes Mints, chunks of Hershey bar, M&Ms and butterscotch chips. Each was topped with two Whoppers. I should mention that each contestant did not know what mix-ins the others used. By this point, Tim Gunn knew that the Whoppers were going to deflate and develop an odd texture, but it wouldn't have been fair to Kai to warn Marco about this. 

Next up was Nancy (age 44), the defending champion. Like Julia (the other former champion), Nancy made a cookie that was quite similar to her winning cookie. This year's cookie was named "It's Bigly Delicious and I Always Knew I'd Win" and it contained butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, cashews, lemon zest and grated ginger.

Steve (age 41) was the final baker. His cookie was named "Spicy" and contained cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg and pepper. 

Everyone was very excited when it came time for judging. To keep the cookies anonymous and the judging unbiased, Tim Gunn introduced each cookie and its ingredients. Each person (the 8 contestants, plus Sherry and me) then gave it a score from 1-10. After all the cookies were judged, I dropped the highest and the lowest scores and totaled the rest. 

I have to say, there wasn't a bad cookie in the bunch. There were great cookies and good cookies. I would happily eat any of them again, even the ones that seemed a bit odd. When I tallied up the votes, I noticed a distinct difference in how the kids rated the cookies vs. how the adults did. The kids gave consistently high scores to anything with candy, while the adults gave much higher scores to the spice cookie than the kids did. Another very interesting result: Nancy and Julia, the two previous winners who made cookies similar to their winning cookies, placed as the top two, despite the fact that we had four judges who were completely new to our competition. 

I wish I had a cloche so that I could dramatically reveal the winner, but I don't. (Someone buy me a cloche, please.) So I had to resort to whipping a towel off of the winning plate. And the winner is.... Nancy, with her aptly named "It's Bigly Delicious and I Always Knew I'd Win" cookie!

Congrats to Nancy and all the contestants for their fabulous creations. I'm already looking forward to our next competition! 

'He is Risen' Easter Canvas

Most of the deRosier Easter decorations are rabbit-themed. No surprise, as most of our everyday decorations are also rabbit-themed. I decided to make a canvas to display amongst all the rabbits to help us remember the true meaning of Easter. Affiliate links below. 

'He is Risen' Easter Canvas

Materials:

• canvas board
• white gesso
• Faber-Castell Gelatos
• letter stickers
• black Sharpie
• paper trimmer
• black cardstock
• craft glue

Steps:

Prep the canvas with gesso. When it is dry, use the yellow, orange and red Gelatos to create a sunrise background on the canvas. 

Add letter stickers to the top of the canvas. Use the Sharpie to blacken the bottom edge.

Cut a piece of cardstock to the width of the canvas, then tear a hill shape. Glue it to the bottom of the canvas. Cut a narrow strip of black, then trim it to make two parts, one a little more than twice as long as the other. 

Glue the strips to make a cross on top of the hill. 

Jesus is Risen! He is risen indeed, hallelujah!

Boston Tea Party Drawing

The fifth graders made boycott posters after we studied the various taxes Parliament levied on the American colonists. For our next session together, I did a draw-along as I taught them about the Boston Tea Party.

I drew on the white board and obviously wasn't able to photograph myself as I was teaching, but I did take pictures as I made my sample drawing. 

---------

Boston Tea Party Drawing

Materials: 

• white drawing paper
• colored pencils

Steps:

Orient your paper horizontally (landscape). With a brown colored pencil, draw the top portion of five rectangular prisms in the middle third of the paper. (I use geometry terms, like rectangular prism, when teaching directed drawings to reenforce what they are studying in math. This lesson integrates math, social studies and art with listening skills.)

Use red and blue pencils to draw the British flag on the front face of each prism. 

With a black pencil, add the word TEA and the logo of the British East India Company on the short faces of the rectangular prisms. Use the brown pencil to shade in the prisms to look like wooden crates.

Use a blue pencil to make short, horizontal strokes around the boxes to mimic water.

Use different blues and purples to fill in the water. Use greys and blacks to make shadows immediately below each of the prisms. 

Add "Boston: December 16, 1773" and "No taxation without representation!" to the poster. 

When our posters were done, we drank Liberty Tea (made with local fruits, herbs, etc) instead of British black tea. 

I always tell my students that studying history is a bit like reading a mystery book when you already know how it's going to end. They know that the American colonists are going to declare independence and that the United States will win the war against England, but how they accomplish that exceedingly unlikely result is fascinating. It's fun to help the students put the pieces together of what they already know with the who, what, when, where, why and how our country came to be. 

Next time, the Declaration of Independence!

Salt Dough Fox Magnet

Here's a simple salt dough project. This fox makes such a fun refrigerator magnet.

Salt Dough Fox Magnet 

Materials:

• salt dough (2 parts flour, 1 part salt, 1 part water)
• rolling pin
• star cookie cutter
• brown felt-tip pen
• craft glue
• googly eyes
• black Sharpie
• rhinestone
• magnet

Steps:

1. Roll out the salt dough. 
2. Cut a star shape and set it aside for several days until it is completely dry.
3. Use the brown pen to color the fox's face. Use the photo as a guide.
4. Glue the googly eyes in place.
5. Color the rhinestone with the black Sharpie. When it is dry, glue it in place.
6. Attach the magnet to the back of the fox.